Crikey to uphold new public interest defence in Murdoch defamation trial
Crikey has filed its defence against media mogul Lachlan Murdoch, revealing the online news outlet plans to use a new public interest defence law.
The CEO of Crikey’s publisher, Private Media, Will Hayward, laid out three key points of the publishers legal defence in a statement shared to the Crikey website.
First, the publisher denies it has defamed Murdoch, issuing in the statement that it does “not believe that the average Australian of reasonable intelligence (the test for this part of defamation law) would have read our article and interpreted it in the way Mr Murdoch claims.”
Second, Hayward wrote Crikey did not believe it should be “prevented by law from stating honestly held opinions, as an act of free speech, on a matter of obvious and high public interest.”
“It is fair that someone might disagree with the opinion we expressed. But we think it is a reasonable argument to make, and the right to express such an opinion is absolutely critical to the functioning of an open, modern democracy. We stand firmly against censorship, especially in matters of significant public interest. As such, our case will test the new ‘public interest’ defence, specifically as it relates to opinion writing, as opposed to investigative reporting.”
Finally, the statement outlined the publisher did not believe Murdoch had faced any serious harm as a result of the article.
“Again, we think it is important in an open, well-functioning society that the rich and powerful can be critiqued, and that there is a high bar to reach before they have suffered serious harm from an opinion article,” wrote Hayward.
In response to the statement, which has been circulated on social media by alongside a video of Hayward explain Private Media’s defence, Murdoch’s lawyers have told a Sydney judge that the company has been “directing ridicule and hatred” towards their client.
Barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC said to Justice Michael Wigney that “it would appear how the respondents are portraying the proceedings and are portraying what is, in fact, in issue is very different to what the pleaded issues are.”
“That has had a number of effects, including the no doubt increase in subscriptions and money paid to a GoFundMe account that has been set up, but also directing ridicule and hatred towards my client.”
Justice Wigney has set a nine-day hearing that will begin on March 27, but has said he will at some point advise the parties to attend mediation before a registrar.
The statement comes a month after Crikey took out ad space in The New York Times and The Canberra Times to publish an open letter to Murdoch laying bare its intentions to defend its journalism in court, following threats of a defamation suit from Murdoch’s camp.
The defamation suit revolves around a piece of commentary published by Crikey in June, titled ‘Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator’.
The story, which the Crikey team asserts mentioned the Murdoch name twice, was initially removed after posting, but has since been reposted by Crikey and its publisher Private Media, along with a section on the website called ‘the Lachlan Murdoch letters’, featuring the full catalogue of the legal correspondence as well as articles from Eric Beecher, Peter Fray, and Bernard Keane.
The case will likely be the first use of the public interest defence, which was the result of new reforms to NSW’s Defamation Act 2005, enabling publications to the public interest as a defence to defamatory matters since 1 July 2021.
The case is set to return to court on 10 October.
Story updated 12:31pm 23 September 2022.
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