Defamation action underway in Australia offers the tantalising prospect of seeing the operations of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News exposed in open court.
The English-speaking world is watching the legal battle between small Australian media company Private Media and global giant News Corporation – whose value is close to ten billion US dollars.
If this goes to court, News Corp’s destructive operations – which have been highlighted here at Daily Kos many times – will be exposed to a much greater audience. If News Corp loses, its global influence should be substantially diminished.
The key assertions
News Corp took exception to a June article in online news and opinion outlet Crikey. The article claimed former President Donald Trump was a ‘confirmed unhinged traitor’ who had propelled the USA into a ‘new and dangerous state of crisis’. It added that News Corp’s owners ‘and their slew of poisonous Fox News commentators are the unindicted co-conspirators of this continuing crisis.’
Yes, pretty defamatory.
See you in court
In Australia, freedom of speech is not available as a defence in defamation. So Private Media has two options. The first is honest opinion, which may succeed, but is certainly not guaranteed.
The second avenue under current defamation laws is the public interest defence, which requires the defendant to show it reasonably believed publishing its assertions, while defamatory, benefitted the community.
Most Australian defamation cases are settled out of court, usually with payment from the defendant to the complainant. But not always. The likelihood that this matter goes all the way is enhanced by the strong support already offered to Crikey. As this is written, crowdfunding is approaching A$500,000 (US$342,000).
America’s dystopian nightmare
This is how the public interest defence may unfold.
There is abundant documentary evidence that the USA has suffered extraordinary dislocation, division, violence and deaths since 2016. Hate crimes surged in 2017 and later. See grey chart at the top here.
Other surges between 2015 and 2021 include:
Police officers shot on duty: up 59.1%.
School shootings: up 78.9%.
Children 0-11 shot: up 56.3%.
Teenagers 12-17 shot: up 71.7%.
Mass shootings: up 106%. See grey and blue graph, below.
In comparable countries, these all remained at zero, or close to, throughout that period.
The unwritten pact
There should be no problem finding expert witnesses who can connect this sudden descent into dystopia directly to the tacit agreement between Donald Trump and Fox News.
They should readily be able to prove that in 2016 Trump and Fox began a concerted campaign to foment anxiety, fear, racial hostility, anger and hatred through false reports attacking perceived enemies and repeated calls to direct physical violence.
The pact committed Trump to use Fox as his go-to media outlet whenever he wanted a forum. Fox, in turn, gave Trump unlimited time, seldom interrupted him and refused to check his ‘facts’. It then amplified Trump’s allegations against his opponents and spread his conspiracy theories at every chance.
The constant falsehoods
The Washington Post tracked most of Trump’s lies throughout his presidency, confirming a total of 30,573.
The most damaging is almost certainly the lie that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen. On 29 November 2020, in his first interview after the 2020 presidential election Trump declared, “This election was a fraud. It was a rigged election.”
Fox presenter Maria Bartiromo responded passionately with: “This is disgusting. And we cannot allow America’s elections to be corrupted.”
Willing testimony
Witnesses who should be keen to support Crikey include academics, public servants, former News Corp journalists and editors and former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull.
Last week, Turnbull told NPR that,
“Fox News has played, by far, the largest single part in the polarization of American politics, in the amplification of political hatred ... Fox News is not the only source of this madness, but it is by far the single most influential one.”
Exposing this reality further definitely serves the public.
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This is an edited version of an article published today in Michael West Media. The original article is available here in full for free:
https://michaelwest.com.au/defamation-lachlan-murdoch-puts-crikey-on-the-world-stage/
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To donate to Crikey’s legal defence fund, please click here:
www.gofundme.com/...
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Disclosure: Alan Austin is an occasional freelance contributor to Crikey.