Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch was directly involved in election fraud news programming at the network and is “morally and ethically” culpable for the ensuing January 6 Capitol riot, Private Media, publisher of Crikey, alleges in an updated defence in its legal battle.
Murdoch is suing Private Media over an opinion article published by Crikey in June 2022 that had the headline: “Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator”.
Murdoch argues the article inferred he “illegally conspired with Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election result” and “illegally conspired with Donald Trump to incite a mob with murderous intent to march on the Capitol”.
Private Media’s updated defence leans on recent filings made in a separate lawsuit launched against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems in the United States, to add a new defence known as “contextual truth”. The new defence will be mounted in addition to the defences of public interest and qualified privilege already pleaded.
The filings relied upon include depositions from both Lachlan and his father Rupert, and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, which suggest that Lachlan was in regular contact with Scott to discuss the network’s coverage of the 2020 US election, from November 2020 up until rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6 2021.
In its defence, Crikey alleges Murdoch allowed Fox News hosts to promote and peddle claims of election fraud he knew to be untrue, despite closely monitoring how the network “handled reporting on the election”, per his deposition in the Dominion case.
Dominion is suing Fox News over claims Dominion played a role in facilitating voter fraud through the 2020 US presidential election. The US$1.6 billion defamation case will go to trial on April 17 and is expected to last six weeks.
Crikey’s defence also alleges Lachlan Murdoch was “generally aware” of allegations made by attorney Sidney Powell on the network, “which were to the effect that the 2020 US presidential election was fraudulently stolen from Mr Trump”.
It also includes a text message included in the Dominion case sent by Murdoch to Scott in November 2020, where he criticised Fox News coverage of a rally in support of Trump.
“News guys have to be careful how they cover this rally. So far some of the side comments are slightly anti, and they shouldn’t be. The narrative should be this is a huge celebration of the president,” the text reads.
The updated defence comes in response to Murdoch’s expansion of the case late last year, which added two new defendants to the case. The defendant list includes Crikey’s political editor Bernard Keane (author of the article), former editor-in-chief Peter Fray, Private Media chairman Eric Beecher, and CEO Will Hayward.
Michael Hodge KC, acting for Private Media in the Federal Court last week, said he was unsure why correspondence revealed in the Dominion filings wasn’t captured during the discovery process of this case.
He said Murdoch could be “culpable” for not stopping Fox News’ broadcast of theories its leadership thought to be false.
“He controls Fox Corporation. He permitted for the commercial and financial benefit of Fox Corporation this lie to be broadcast in the United States,” Hodge told Justice Wigney.
“We say that gives rise to culpability where you are allowing and promoting this lie and that lie is the motivation for the insurrection.”
The Dominion filings suggest that election fraud programming broadcast on Fox News was discussed by editorial leadership at twice-daily meetings from November 2020 through March 2021. These meetings, the filings claim, were “at times” attended by both Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch’s barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC described the proposed update to Private Media’s 1000-page defence as an “incomprehensible waste of time” that risked turning the case into “something that resembles some sort of inquiry”.
“They don’t care if they win or lose. They are happy to martyr themselves in this litigation, to seek more money from the GoFundMe campaign,” Chrysanthou said.
“They win by the furtherance of that narrative in this court.”
Hodge maintained the updated defence wouldn’t derail the court’s trial schedule.
