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    The Murdoch Feud Explained, With Thanks to ‘Succession’

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    Shannon Lin/The New York TimesIn the final season of “Succession,” the HBO drama about a fictional media clan, the show’s grisly patriarch, Logan Roy, dishes out some characteristically choice words to his privileged children: “I love you, but you are not serious people.”The real-life media billionaire Rupert Murdoch appeared to share similar sentiments, a recent ruling revealed, as he tried to wrestle power from three of his offspring: “I love each of my children,” he said, reading from a statement during a trust meeting. “But these companies need a designated leader and Lachlan is that leader.” Lachlan Murdoch, one assumes, in his father’s mind, is the most serious.Art imitating life or life imitating art — it gets confusing when it comes to the nonfiction drama being played out by the Murdochs. In last weekend’s ruling on Mr. Murdoch’s failed attempt to change his family trust, one representative was roundly criticized for knowing so little about the Murdochs that he watched “Succession” to brush up. A separate rep, it emerged, took inspiration from the show to draw up a “‘Succession’ memo” on how to navigate the family empire when the now 93-year-old patriarch dies.Avid “Succession” viewers know how well that turned out for the Roy family. After Logan’s death on a private jet, his wishes were impossible to interpret. (Was that name underlined or crossed out?) In the ensuing power vacuum, his children failed miserably, unable to form any meaningful alliances, and ultimately lost control of the family empire.So what does the future hold for the Murdochs?Mr. Murdoch was disappointed that his “objector” children, as they were described in the court proceedings, pushed back when he attempted to change his family trust to cement his eldest son, Lachlan, in control, with the aim of bulletproofing the conservative bent of his media empire. The senior Murdoch seemed to feel that his children should simply respect his wishes for what happens to his empire, and his wealth, when he dies. That included giving up their equal control in the family trust.The Murdoch heirs are already beyond wealthy, to the tune of $2 billion each, from the sale of the family’s 21st Century Fox assets to Disney. That’s to say nothing of previous multimillion-dollar payments they have received.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Rupert Murdoch Could Fight Back After a Big Legal Defeat

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      Rupert Murdoch lost a bid to rewrite a family trust to give his son Lachlan control of his empire after he dies. But the nonagenarian media titan plans to appeal.Rupert Murdoch failed in his attempt to give sole control of his media empire to Lachlan, his eldest son.Emily Najera for The New York TimesMurdoch’s next move Rupert Murdoch has lost his bid to hand control over his media company to his elder son, Lachlan Murdoch, after he dies. A Nevada commissioner ruled against his attempt to modify the terms of a family trust that would have stripped three of his other children of their voting rights over his empire.The media mogul, who plans to appeal the ruling, is used to getting his way, The Times’s Edmund Lee writes for DealBook. Now what?A recap: Under the current arrangement, when Murdoch dies, four of his children — Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence — will have an equal say in what happens next because they will inherit his voting shares.But Elisabeth and James have different political leanings from Lachlan and their father, and James has indirectly criticized how Fox News operates. The three siblings contested the attempts to change the trust.This was perhaps the last maneuver of Murdoch’s seven-decade career. The 93-year-old wanted to give Lachlan control over his news outlets — which include Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and major newspapers and television outlets in Australia and Britain — to maintain their right-leaning slant.Fox News stars have been instrumental in helping President-elect Donald Trump through his three presidential campaigns.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Washington Post Shake-Up Renews Attention on U.K. Phone Hacking

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      The newspaper’s new publisher argued against coverage of British phone hacking. Instead, he has invited renewed scrutiny.In 2011, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, News Corporation, faced a grave threat in Britain. Reporters at one of his tabloid newspapers were exposed for hacking the phones of celebrities, private citizens and, in one case, a murdered child for information.Other misdeeds soon emerged, including the revelation that for years, tabloid reporters had paid for information from police officers and government officials.Desperate to stop the scandal and appease prosecutors in Britain and abroad, News Corp tapped Will Lewis, a former editor of The Daily Telegraph, to clean up the mess.He did just that. In his telling, he cooperated with the authorities, revealed wrongdoing and helped set the operation on a new course. Some former colleagues and hacking victims, though, long believed that he helped News Corp cover up the extent of the wrongdoing.Those accusations — nearly 15 years old and unproven — suddenly have fresh currency and have complicated Mr. Lewis’s new job as publisher of The Washington Post.Last month, while Mr. Lewis prepared to restructure the Post newsroom, a judge in London ruled that victims of phone hacking could press ahead with more allegations in their wide-ranging lawsuit. Though Mr. Lewis is not a defendant, the lawsuit asserts that his cleanup was in part a cover-up to protect News Corp leaders.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lachlan Murdoch knew Fox News claim of stolen US election was false, Crikey will argue in defamation trial

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      Lachlan Murdoch allowed Fox News hosts to peddle the claim that the US presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump despite knowing it was false, Crikey will argue in a defence of contextual truth in its upcoming defamation trial.The 36-page defence, which has been filed by the Crikey publisher, Private Media, in the federal court ahead of an October trial, substantially relies upon events in the US, where Dominion brought a $1.6bn defamation suit against the media company for spreading election lies.Crikey’s defence alleges Murdoch “closely monitored how Fox News Network handled reporting on the election”, according to his Dominion deposition, and that he was “generally aware of the allegations made by Sidney Powell on the Fox News Network at the time they were being made, which were to the effect that the 2020 US presidential election was fraudulently stolen from Mr Trump”.The US jury trial, set to begin on 17 April, centres on whether Fox News knowingly broadcast false claims about Dominion equipment as Trump and his allies sought to overturn the 2020 election.Justice Michael Wigney granted Crikey additional time to add the contextual truth defence on top of its already pleaded defences of public interest and qualified privilege.The defamation proceedings against the independent Australian news site were launched last year over an article published in June that referred to the Murdoch family as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the US Capitol attack.
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      The expanded defence includes the recent admission by Rupert Murdoch that Fox News hosts endorsed Trump’s false claims.“Lachlan Murdoch is morally and ethically culpable for the illegal January 6 attack because Fox News, under his control and management, promoted and peddled Trump’s lie of the stolen election despite Lachlan Murdoch knowing it was false,” the Crikey defence says.“Lachlan Murdoch’s unethical and reprehensible conduct in allowing Fox News to promote and peddle Trump’s lie of the stolen election, despite Lachlan Murdoch knowing it was false, makes him morally and ethically culpable for the illegal January 6 attack.”Murdoch’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou SC, indicated in an earlier hearing she would apply to strike out the contextual truth defence, which she described as vague.“This defence is not rational, it is not arguable, it’s a waste of everyone’s time and it serves no legitimate end in the litigation,” the barrister said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShe accused Crikey of including masses of material from the Dominion case in the Australian defamation lawsuit purely as part of its “Lachlan Murdoch campaign”, which she alleges is an attempt to raise funds and increase subscriptions on the back of the lawsuit.Murdoch’s attempt to split the trial and have the imputations determined first was dismissed.Murdoch has argued that he has been “gravely injured 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 hurt, distress and embarrassment” as a result of the Crikey article.At the hearing earlier this month, Wigney described the litigant and the respondent as having “a scorched earth policy” in their conduct of the matter.“And I say this with the greatest respect … there does seem to be a hint that this case is being driven more by … ego and hubris and ideology than anything else,” he said. More

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      Lachlan Murdoch ‘culpable’ for January 6 insurrection because of Fox News ‘lies’, Australian defamation case hears

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      Media mogul Lachlan Murdoch was culpable for the violent insurrection of the US Capitol after the 2020 presidential election because of lies told through Fox News, a judge has heard.In the federal court on Tuesday, barrister Michael Hodge KC said that while many media sources fuelled a conspiracy theory that Joe Biden stole the election from Donald Trump, Murdoch could still be held responsible.“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 Michael 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.”Hodge is representing Private Media, which publishes Crikey, as well as political editor Bernard Keane, editor-in-chief Peter Fray, chairman Eric Beecher and chief executive Will Hayward.They are seeking additional time to file their defences to Murdoch’s defamation suit over an opinion piece published in June last year and reposted in August referring to him as an “unindicted co-conspirator” with Trump over the false election claims.The publisher is seeking to add a contextual truth defence on top of its already pleaded defences of public interest and qualified privilege.
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      The proposed defence, yet to be approved by the federal court, includes personal communications between the Murdoch family revealed via separate US defamation proceedings brought against Fox by voting equipment company Dominion which claims it was falsely accused of conducting mass voter fraud.In one SMS, Rupert Murdoch tells his son Lachlan and Fox board member Paul Ryan about Trump’s “conspiracy nonsense” and refers to Fox talk show host Sean Hannity.“Wake up call for Hannity who has been privately disgusted by Trump for weeks but has been scared to lose viewers,” Rupert Murdoch wrote.Lachlan Murdoch, in the defamation case against Crikey, claims the articles conveyed a meaning that he illegally conspired with Trump to “incite a mob with murderous intent to march on the Capitol” in Washington DC on 6 January 2021.Murdoch’s barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC called the proposed contextual truth defence vague, saying it did not say how her client was culpable for the state of mind of about 2,000 people who stormed the Capitol building on 6 January.Other Murdoch-owned publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and even Fox itself had reported that Biden won the election and had disagreed with Trump’s claims.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This defence is not rational, it is not arguable, it’s a waste of everyone’s time and it serves no legitimate end in the litigation,” the barrister said.She accused Crikey of including masses of material from the Dominion case in the Australian defamation lawsuit purely as part of its “Lachlan Murdoch campaign”.The media executive has previously alleged that Crikey has run this campaign against him to boost subscribers and gain financially.“They are happy to martyr themselves in this litigation to seek more money on the GoFundMe me campaign … to turn the case into something that resembles an inquiry and they don’t care if they win or lose,” Chrysanthou said.She urged the judge to reject the defence, saying it would mean a three-week trial scheduled to begin 9 October would have to be vacated.Wigney was due to deliver his judgment on Tuesday afternoon. More

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      Fox News braces for more turbulence as second defamation lawsuit advances

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      Fox News braces for more turbulence as second defamation lawsuit advancesNew York court greenlights $2.7bn suit against news channel by election company Smartmatic over 2020 presidential election liesAs Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation battles to contain the Dominion lawsuit scandal that has engulfed its top executives and stars, another crisis is building in the wings that has the potential to cause further turbulence for the media empire.‘Lachlan’s in the mire’: Fox News case spells trouble for Murdoch heirRead moreSmartmatic’s lawsuit against Fox News has attracted only a fraction of the attention garnered by the legal action of Dominion Voting Systems. Yet both firms are suing Fox for defamation related to its coverage of Donald Trump’s stolen-election lie, and both pose a serious threat to Fox’s finances and reputation.In fact, on paper Smartmatic’s suit appears to be the more dangerous. It’s demanding damages of $2.7bn, compared with Dominion’s $1.6bn.So far, attempts by Fox lawyers to have the Smartmatic case dismissed have fallen on stony ground. Last week the New York state supreme court in Manhattan gave the green light for the case to proceed against Fox News, the Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, the former business anchor Lou Dobbs and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.Smartmatic, a global election technology company headquartered in London, lodged its defamation suit in February 2021. “The Earth is round,” was the complaint’s striking opening sentence. “Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election … ”The complaint goes on to argue that, contrary to these indisputable facts, Fox News broadcast a series of blatant lies in support of Trump’s stolen election conspiracy theory. “Defendants did not want Biden to win the election. They wanted President Trump to win re-election … They also saw an opportunity to capitalize on President Trump’s popularity by inventing a story.”To prop up that story, the lawsuit claims, Fox needed a villain. That villain was Smartmatic.Smartmatic claims that more than 100 false statements were broadcast by Fox News hosts and guests. Smartmatic was falsely said to have been involved in 2020 election counts in six battleground states – in fact, it was present only at the count in Los Angeles county.Fox broadcast that Smartmatic shared its technology with Dominion, when in fact the two companies had no communication and regarded each other as rivals. Smartmatic was in cahoots with foreign governments in a conspiracy to rig the vote for Biden, Giuliani said on Bartiromo’s show – a claim that the company disputes as false and defamatory.Fox also described Smartmatic as having been founded in Venezuela at the behest of corrupt dictators. In fact, it was founded by Antonio Mugica and Roger Piñate in 2000 in Boca Raton, Florida, in the wake of the “hanging chad” fiasco, with the aim of using technology to restore people’s faith in election results.The business has since grown around the world. The firm claims that it has lost clients as a result of what it calls Fox’s “disinformation campaign”.Fox News has disputed Smartmatic’s multibillion estimate of its losses, calling it vastly inflated.A spokesperson for the broadcaster told the Guardian: “Freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis, serving as nothing more than a flagrant attempt to deter our journalists from doing their jobs. There is nothing more newsworthy than covering the president of the US and his lawyers making allegations.”Smartmatic has a very high bar to meet if it is to win the defamation suit at trial. New York state law has a rigorous approach to the first amendment of the US constitution which preserves press freedom.Under it, plaintiffs have to be able to convince a jury that not only did the media outlet put out false information, it did so with “actual malice”. That means that it either knew it was peddling a lie and went ahead anyway, or showed a reckless disregard for the truth.“New York is pretty protective of media rights,” said Roy Gutterman, a media law professor at Syracuse University who was a consultant early on in the Smartmatic case advising a non-party entity. “Every year I read a lot of cases from New York, and it’s hard to be successful in this state.”Despite this tough challenge, so far the wind is in Smartmatic’s sails. David Cohen, the New York supreme court justice presiding over the litigation, has indicated that the company has a strong enough case to go to trial.In last week’s ruling, Cohen found that “at a minimum, Fox News turned a blind eye to a litany of outrageous claims” about Smartmatic. “Plaintiffs have pleaded facts sufficient to allow a jury to infer that Fox News acted with actual malice.”TopicsFox NewsUS elections 2020News CorporationRudy GiulianiMedia businessTV newsnewsReuse this content More

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      Republican who urged Trump to declare ‘Marshall’ law only regrets misspelling

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      Republican who urged Trump to declare ‘Marshall’ law only regrets misspellingText from Ralph Norman to Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, urged president to declare martial law A Republican who urged the Trump White House to declare martial law to stop Joe Biden taking office has only one regret: that he misspelled “martial”.Ron DeSantis leads Donald Trump by 23 points in Republican pollRead moreThe text from Ralph Norman of South Carolina to Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, was given to the January 6 committee by Meadows and revealed by Talking Points Memo.On 17 January 2021, 11 days after the deadly Capitol attack and three days before Biden’s inauguration, Norman wrote: “Mark, in seeing what’s happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic !! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!”No response from Meadows was revealed.On Tuesday, a HuffPost reporter asked Norman about the message.Norman said: “Well, I misspelled ‘martial’.”He added: “I was very frustrated then, I’m frustrated now. I was frustrated then by what was going on in the Capitol. President Biden was in his basement the whole year. Dominion was raising all kinda questions.”The reference to Biden’s basement was to the then Democratic candidate’s decision largely to stay off the campaign trail in 2020, the year of the Covid pandemic.Dominion Voting Systems has filed major lawsuits, notably against Fox News, regarding claims its machines were involved in voter fraud.Trump insists his defeat by Biden – by more than 7m votes and by 306-232 in the electoral college – was the result of electoral fraud. It was not.Norman was among 147 Republicans in the House and Senate who objected to results in key states even after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, a riot now linked to nine deaths.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection, proceedings which were ongoing when Norman texted Meadows.According to CNN, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia congresswoman, also texted Meadows on 17 January, writing: “In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law.”This week, Greene said that if she and Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, had organised the Capitol riot, “we would have won”. She also said rioters “would’ve been armed”.According to the Congressional Research Service, “crises in public order, both real and potential, often evoke comments concerning a resort to martial law.“While some ambiguity exists regarding the conditions of a martial law setting, such a prospect, nonetheless, is disturbing to many Americans who cherish their liberties, expect civilian law enforcement to prevail, and support civilian control of military authority.”The CRS also says that since the second world war, “martial law has not been presidentially directed or approved for any area of the United States. Federal troops have been dispatched to domestic locales experiencing unrest or riot, but in these situations the military has remained subordinate to federal civilian management.”Marjorie Taylor Greene: Capitol attack ‘would’ve been armed’ if I was in chargeRead moreOn Tuesday, Norman told HuffPost: “I was frustrated at the time with everything that was happening. It was a private text between a friend and myself, nothing more, nothing less.”On Wednesday, the White House issued a rebuke.“Plotting against the rule of law and to subvert the will of the people is a disgusting affront to our deepest principles as a country,” the deputy press secretary, Andrew Bates, said.Referring to Trump’s slogan, Make America Great Again, Bates added: “We all, regardless of party, need to stand up for mainstream values and the constitution, against dangerous, ultra-Maga conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric.”TopicsRepublicansUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS elections 2020US Capitol attackUS politicsUS militarynewsReuse this content More

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      Republican who wanted Trump to declare ‘Marshall’ law only regrets the misspelling

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      Republican who wanted Trump to declare ‘Marshall’ law only regrets the misspellingText from Ralph Norman to Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, urged president to declare martial law A Republican who urged the Trump White House to declare martial law to stop Joe Biden taking office has only one regret: that he misspelled “martial”.Ron DeSantis leads Donald Trump by 23 points in Republican pollRead moreThe text from Ralph Norman of South Carolina to Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final chief of staff, was given to the January 6 committee by Meadows and revealed by Talking Points Memo this week.On 17 January 2021, 11 days after the deadly Capitol attack and three days before Biden’s inauguration, Norman wrote: “Mark, in seeing what’s happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic !! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!”No response from Meadows was revealed. On Tuesday, a HuffPo reporter asked Norman about the message.Norman said: “Well, I misspelled ‘martial’.”He added: “I was very frustrated then, I’m frustrated now. I was frustrated then by what was going on in the Capitol. President Biden was in his basement the whole year. Dominion was raising all kinda questions.”The reference to Biden’s basement was to the then Democratic candidate’s decision largely to stay off the campaign trail in 2020, the year of the Covid pandemic.Dominion Voting Systems has filed major lawsuits, notably against Fox News, regarding claims its machines were involved in voter fraud.Trump insists his defeat by Biden – by more than 7m votes and by 306-232 in the electoral college – was the result of electoral fraud. It was not.Norman was among 147 Republicans in the House and Senate who voted to object to results in key states, even after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, a riot now linked to nine deaths including suicides among law enforcement.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection, proceedings which were ongoing when Norman texted Meadows.According to CNN, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia congresswoman, also asked Meadows about “Marshall law” on 17 January, writing: “In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law.”This week, Greene said that if she and Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, had organised the Capitol riot, “we would have won”. She also said rioters “would’ve been armed”.Marjorie Taylor Greene: Capitol attack ‘would’ve been armed’ if I was in chargeRead moreAccording to the Congressional Research Service, “crises in public order, both real and potential, often evoke comments concerning a resort to martial law. “While some ambiguity exists regarding the conditions of a martial law setting, such a prospect, nonetheless, is disturbing to many Americans who cherish their liberties, expect civilian law enforcement to prevail, and support civilian control of military authority.”The CRS also says that since the conclusion of the second world war, “martial law has not been presidentially directed or approved for any area of the United States. Federal troops have been dispatched to domestic locales experiencing unrest or riot, but in these situations the military has remained subordinate to federal civilian management.”On Tuesday, Norman told HuffPost: “I was frustrated at the time with everything that was happening. It was a private text between a friend and myself, nothing more, nothing less.”TopicsRepublicansUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS elections 2020US Capitol attackUS politicsUS militarynewsReuse this content More

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      Lachlan Murdoch alleges Crikey hired marketing firm to turn legal threat into subscription drive

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      Lachlan Murdoch alleges Crikey hired marketing firm to turn legal threat into subscription driveNews Corp co-chair’s lawyer tells federal court she intends to show Crikey did not republish article for public interest reasons

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      Crikey hired a marketing company to capitalise on a legal threat from Lachlan Murdoch in order to drive subscriptions, the co-chair of News Corporation has alleged in the federal court.Murdoch launched defamation proceedings in August against the independent news site over an article published in June that named the Murdoch family as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the US Capitol attack. The trial has been set down for March 2023 but the parties are in dispute over pretrial matters.One of the matters heard by justice Michael Wigney in a brief hearing was an allegation by the Murdoch team that a marketing campaign, run by brand strategists Populares, undermines the public interest defence on which Crikey publisher Private Media was relying.Lachlan Murdoch’s legal team loses bid to have parts of Crikey’s defamation defence dismissedRead moreIn response to a concerns letter from Murdoch in June, Crikey initially agreed to take down the article but after failing to reach agreement it was reinstated on 15 August.Sue Chrysanthou SC, for Murdoch, said she intends to show that republication of the article was not for public interest reasons but for a marketing campaign.She said Populares produced a “significant report” titled “Lachlan Murdoch Campaign” about how “a dispute with my client could be marketed for the purposes of attracting new readers and gaining subscriptions”.“The purpose of the re-posting was not for the public interest, it was for the media campaign,” she said.
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      In his statement of claim in August Murdoch alleged that the placement of a New York Times advertisement inviting him to sue Crikey over the alleged defamation was “seeking to humiliate” the executive chair and chief executive of Fox Corporation.Chrysanthou said social media was “the modern-day grapevine” and alleged Crikey had paid for some posts about her client “to be promoted and advertised”.She sought orders for Crikey to provide further information in response to questions because the submitted outlines of information did not address anything after the 29 June publication of the article by Crikey’s politics editor, Bernard Keane. Wigney said the request for written answers to about 180 questions, including sub-questions, could delay proceedings and he repeatedly asked Chrysanthou: “Do you want this to go to trial in March?”“I would withdraw those interrogatories you can cross-examine them,” he said.‘Lachlan gets fired the day Rupert dies’: Murdoch biography stokes succession rumorsRead morePrivate Media’s lawyer, Clarissa Amato, said Chrysanthou’s request would result in a “a catastrophic waste of time and money”.“Some of those may be things simply left out of the discovery list by accident … there are other requests that are effectively new categories of documents,” Amato said.Chrysanthou said the social media posts about her client had spread “like a virus”, and she would call a social media expert to give evidence explaining the reach.“We want the expert to address that issue, and the effect of promoting particular posts and how that then causes those posts to appear in different people’s feeds,” Chrysanthou said.She said the expert would be asked to explain a few essential posts, relevant to claims of serious harm from the publication.Murdoch is seeking damages because through the publication and republication of the article he alleges he “has been gravely injured 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 hurt, distress and embarrassment”.The parties will return to court on Thursday.TopicsLachlan MurdochAustralian mediaLaw (Australia)Defamation lawMedia businessNews CorporationMedia lawnewsReuse this content More