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.
On February 14 2000, The Age was quite happy to publish the following Valentine’s Day message in its printed classified ads section:
Dear Crikey Boys, love what you’re doing and keen to buy it! Sorry we can’t make it tonight. Rupert and Kerry.
“Tonight” was the $6000 Crikey launch function for 150 people at Melbourne’s Imperial Hotel, opposite Parliament House, and the Rupert and Kerry were Murdoch and Packer, the two most powerful media billionaires in Australia.
Fast-forward 22 years: Crikey survives to this day and Kerry Packer is dead, while his son James Packer has fully exited the media and was this week even directly communicating with us in writing for the first time.
Meanwhile, over in Camp Murdoch, Rupert clings to power at 91 as the four-times-divorced executive chairman of two public companies who rarely turns up to analyst briefings and is sharing in annual salary and bonuses of almost $100 million with his favourite right-wing son and co-chairman, Lachlan.
The oldest son has also now departed from Rupert’s long-held rule of not suing for defamation, by punching down on little ol’ Crikey.
As for The Age, it is now owned by Nine Entertainment Corp, chaired by Peter Costello, and refused to publish Monday’s full-page Crikey ad inviting Lachlan to make good on his legal threats by actually suing — unlike all those page-one anti-vax missives from Clive Palmer. Yet the story of Lachlan’s actual writ led The Age’s home page at 9.30pm on Tuesday night. Oh, dear.
As a long-time Murdoch watcher and recipient of three defamation writs during the first five years of Crikey until its sale in March 2005 to Private Media, I was tipping that Lachlan wouldn’t sue based on the principle that powerful oligarchs shouldn’t give oxygen to annoying media gnats.
Instead, Lachlan has now created arguably the biggest moment in Crikey’s 22-year history and undoubtedly the most amount of global publicity it has ever received, with everyone from the BBC to The Financial Times, The New York Times and NPR running the story.
Former Crikey business editor Paddy Manning is presumably licking his chops, given Black Inc is launching his unauthorised Lachlan biography, The Successor, on November 1.
I haven’t worked a day in the Crikey office these past 17 years, have no access to their system, and contribute a casual story a week with no contract. I had no prior warning that the nuclear button against Lachlan was going to be pushed at 5pm on Monday afternoon.
That said, I was super proud of the crazy-brave tactic and am also confident there will be global funding support should the parties remain in the legal trenches for an extended period.
When shock-jock Steve Price injuncted the sale of our family home in a bitter defamation battle back in 2002, monthly Crikey revenues tripled to $30,000 and stayed there until the sale three years later. And there remains support from people who want to help take on the Murdochs.
The other complication for Lachlan will be his status as a lone personal plaintiff serviced by Sydney solicitor and sole practitioner John Churchill.
Corporate governance rules will prevent Lachlan from tapping into public company resources for a personal action, particularly when the family only owns about 14% of the total Fox and News Corp shares on issue. This matter can’t just be shunted off to the News Corp legal department, and Lachlan will be personally writing the cheques and giving the detailed instructions, something that the chairman of two public companies arguably shouldn’t be distracted by.
There is also the prospect of Lachlan copping personal legal threats from people aggrieved by some of the arguably defamatory content produced by his Australian empire. It is now very easy to find his lawyer and send through an email and adopt his common tactic of demanding that this or that be taken down — or else!
Lachlan may be the non-executive co-chairman of News Corp, but he’s also the only one of these nine directors based in the Sydney head office. It would also appear that he has significant editorial influence in Australia, considering that most of the Murdoch outlets declined to publish the Crikey writ story all week.
