Sydney (Australia), Aug 24 – The CEO and president of the Fox TV network, Lachlan Murdoch, sued the independent Australian media outlet Crickey for publishing an opinion piece in which he linked his family and Fox News with the violent assault on the US Capitol that occurred on January 6.
Murdoch, son of tycoon Rupert Murdoch, sued the group Private Media, to which Crickey belongs, in the Australian Federal Court, for the article titled “Trump is a confirmed deranged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator” that was published on June 29, the Australian publication confirmed on Wednesday.
Murdoch’s lawyers say that article, shared many times on social media, insinuates that the businessman illegally conspired with former US President Donald Trump to incite an armed mob to march on Capitol Hill to physically prevent the confirmation of the result of the election. the 2020 presidential election.
Murdoch “has been seriously damaged in his character, his personal reputation and his professional reputation as a business person and company director and has suffered and will continue to suffer substantial damage, anguish and embarrassment,” according to the documents cited by the Australian agency. AAP.
For their part, Crickey’s publisher Peter Fray and Private Media president Eric Beecher said “Crikey defends his story” and will defend “independent public interest journalism” in court, in a statement posted on their website. portal this Wednesday.
We look forward to defending our independent public interest journalism in court against Lachlan Murdoch’s significant appeals.
The case dates back to an article published by political editor Bernard Keane, who linked Trump and his supporters to the assault on Washington’s Capitol and said many people would be missing from a potential trial of the former Republican leader for alleged crimes committed during his mandate.
“Former US President Richard Nixon was the famous ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ in the Watergate (case). The Murdochs and their group of poisonous Fox News commentators are the unindicted co-conspirators in this ongoing crisis,” Keane said.
The text was removed from the internet a day after it was published, but was re-uploaded by Crickey, an independent online media outlet that has been operating in Australia for more than 20 years, along with a series of letters from Murdoch’s lawyers in which threatens the media with starting a legal battle, which took place the day before.
In an article published today, Keane noted that “to suggest that the Murdochs bear no responsibility for the events of January 6, or that making such a suggestion should be punished in court, is an extraordinary denial of the public interest. However, That is what Lachlan Murdoch is now pursuing in Federal Court.”
For his part, the former Australian Prime Minister, the liberal Malcolm Turnbull, told the public broadcaster ABC that “very few people have defamed more people than the Murdochs over the years through their media organization.”
“January 6 could not have happened without the toxic influence of Fox News,” Turnbull stressed in that interview, considering that the misinformation about the results of the 2020 elections in the United States, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden, was amplified. by Fox.