This article is part of a series about a legal threat sent to Crikey by Lachlan Murdoch, over an article Crikey published about the January 6 riots in the US. For the series introduction go here, and for the full series go here.
My job at Private Media, parent company of Crikey, is to make sure our work reaches many and is sustainable. I’m not a journalist; most of my time is spent on product, marketing, ad sales, strategy — and budgets.
Oftentimes, this makes me the one who has to make the unpopular choice. This might involve reducing costs, not pursuing potentially great ideas, and from time to time apologising to people we’ve written about because we got it wrong.
Sometimes we apologise not because we’ve written anything we believe to be wrong, but because legal advice is that the wrong judge, plus Australia’s extraordinarily pro-litigant defamation laws, might find against us. Sometimes the speculative bill is just too high.
Each year, we spend in the region of $100,000-$200,000 on legal services. This is probably appropriate — we often write on contentious matters, and more often than not these matters include many details others would rather be kept secret. This bill is growing, but so is our business. We’d rather spend the money on journalism, but such is the business of reporting.
When we received the initial concerns notice from Lachlan Murdoch, we sought our usual legal advice. We had a range of estimates for what the worst case could look like. One went as high as $3 million if we lost the case and had to pay much of Murdoch’s legal fees.
That would be enough to force some radical changes to our business, something I suspect Murdoch knows. As is often the case, the power distribution is unfathomably large. As context, that would be close to all the revenue we received from our subscribers last year. For Murdoch, it’s just a good day on the stock market.
We aren’t David to the Goliath; we’re David’s weaker younger sibling. And Goliath has been on the juice again.
So why take on this fight? One of the first rules in business is never bet the company, no matter how strong the odds. We are not doing that. But we believe a free press is worth fighting for.
The article we published on June 29 is one of the most uncontroversial opinion pieces we’ve ever written (no offence Bernard). I strongly suspect if you stopped 10 Australians in the street and asked them if Fox News and the Murdochs had anything to do with the riots of January 6, at the very least nine would say they had.
What about the one in 10 who might not be so sure?
Ask them this question — even if you don’t think Fox News had anything to do with the riots, is it a fair reaction to begin defamation proceedings for suggesting they did? Should the opinion writer that wrote the article, and his editor, be personally pursued through the courts? Should the publication that published this opinion face a multimillion-dollar court battle to defend this comment?
Lachlan Murdoch’s answer to all of the above questions appears to be “yes”. Yes, that suggestion is beyond free speech and should be pursued in the courts. Yes, our journalists should be held personally responsible. Yes, Crikey should suffer.
I’m no journalist. But I grew up in a house, like Lachlan, that believes in free speech. We are prepared to defend it. Why does Crikey exist if not to take on this kind of fight?
We don’t know how this will play out. We are making a huge bet. It is our subscribers versus Murdoch’s billions. If you want to support this battle, please join us. And thank you to those who already have.
Do you support Crikey’s decision to publish these letters? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
