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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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      in US Politics

      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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      in Elections

      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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      in Elections

      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

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      in US Politics

      Murdoch v Trump: Rupert’s papers kick Donald, but Fox won’t play ball

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      Murdoch v Trump: Rupert’s papers kick Donald, but Fox won’t play ballSome think the media mogul has made a clean break with ‘Trumpty Dumpty’, but his TV channel may find it hard to let go Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers don’t do subtlety when it comes to political attacks.Over the last week, readers of his US titles have been informed that Donald Trump is “Trumpty Dumpty”, the “biggest loser” in Republican politics, and the man who meant the “red wave” never crested in the US midterm elections.The New York Post marked Trump’s latest bid for election with something more damning: outright mockery.Under the headline: “Florida Man makes announcement,” the formerly pro-Trump newspaper directed readers to a story deep inside the newspaper on page 28.“With just 720 days to go before the next election, a Florida retiree made the surprise announcement Tuesday night that he was running for president,” said the deadpan news report.The tabloid’s print edition has a dwindling readership but the former US president is still said to be a regular reader – which means it probably hurt when they mocked his Mar-a-Lago home – raided by the FBI in August – as a “classified documents library”.Yet while the newspaper editorials have led to suggestions that Murdoch has completed a clean break with the former US president, this misses the more positive reaction on Murdoch’s Fox News television channel.“Murdoch has very little control over his most important outlet, which is Fox,” said Michael Wolff, the media commentator who has written three books on Trump.“Let’s assume Murdoch was giving a message to the Post … he can’t do that at Fox. And Fox is the all-important thing.”Although there has been criticism of Trump on Fox News in recent weeks, several presenters such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have their own loyal audiences who have been fed pro-Trump material for years. A rapid U-turn may be too much for them to take, especially if the network is accused of betrayal.As Wolff puts it: “Each of the voices at Fox is going to be motivated by their own ratings – and if their own ratings are dependent on Trump then they’re not going to deviate. Hannity does not seem to have deviated one increment off his absolute fealty to Trump. Tucker likewise.”In the background is Murdoch’s attempt to reunite two parts of his business empire and ultimately hand over control to his 51-year-old son, Lachlan. The family’s main media interests are separated into two businesses as a result of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, which saw the legally troubled outlets separated.The core business is the US-focused television business Fox, while the newspaper assets – including its UK titles – are controlled by News Corp.Combining the two makes little business sense but would tidy up family succession planning, according to the media analyst Alice Enders: “It’s not about Rupert being back in charge, it’s about Lachlan taking over and pursuing the same traditional classic conservative agenda.”She said that it would be hard for Fox News to find a way to let go of Trump without risking some of the hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising that flows to the network.“Fox is the jewel in the crown. The influence that the Murdochs want to exercise is through Fox News. What’s super interesting is they want to maintain their currency as the go-to news channel for conservative voters – and they have to do that in a way that balances the Trumpistas against everyone.”The focus on US politics also reflects a physical change in Rupert Murdoch’s location.He has spent a substantial time in the UK in recent years alongside his now ex-wife Jerry Hall and his daughter Elisabeth.During the Covid pandemic they were based at an Oxfordshire mansion, where he took the decision to sign up Piers Morgan for the launch of TalkTV and went to get his Covid vaccine – at the same time that his US media outlets were casting doubts on its effectiveness.Now the recently divorced nonagenarian is increasingly based at a newly acquired ranch in rural Montana, a remote state favoured by billionaires. Official documents show that last month he paid £13,000 to fly the former prime minister Boris Johnson there for a meeting, while corporate filings suggest he is running his business empire from the ranch and has permission to hold board meetings there.This raises the question of which Murdoch is now calling the shots: 91-year-old Rupert or Lachlan, who is managing part of the business from his family home in Australia – working late into the night on video calls due to the time difference.Could Trump’s 2024 campaign keep his legal troubles at bay?Read moreThe Trump years weighed heavily on Murdoch, with Fox News facing a $1.6bn lawsuit over claims it amplified Trump’s false allegations about fraud at a voting machine company after his election defeat. Murdoch’s son James has left the family business and had made barely coded criticisms of Fox News, which hit hard according to Wolff.“In terms of Rupert himself, he has always detested Trump. Trump has been the cross to bear in his life, and the Trump effect at Fox has essentially broken up his family.”Trump, banned from Twitter and struggling to get airtime, has not taken his ostracism lightly, whining that they were favouring Florida governor Ron DeSantis.“NewsCorp – which is Fox, the Wall Street Journal and the no longer great New York Post – is all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious,” Trump said.But as Enders puts it: “Murdoch doesn’t back losers. Trump is a loser.”TopicsRupert MurdochDonald TrumpNews CorporationFox NewsUS politicsFoxMedia businessfeaturesReuse this content More

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      The Successor review: life of Lachlan Murdoch pulls punches all too often

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      The Successor review: life of Lachlan Murdoch pulls punches all too oftenReaders of Paddy Manning’s book should keep in mind the words of Media Matters: Fox News is ‘an unchained pro-Trump propaganda outlet that promotes white nationalism’ The Murdochs are in many ways the most important media story of the last 50 years. On three continents their shoddy journalism, blind political ambition, outright racism and unlimited greed have done more damage to democracy than the actions of all their rivals put together.From George Floyd to Hunter Biden: Lachlan Murdoch, Fox News and the year that tested AmericaRead moreThe family’s internal competitions and political alliances are the subjects of dozens of books and documentaries, as well as the inspiration for Succession, the HBO hit now filming its fourth season.The Australian journalist Paddy Manning’s new book focuses on Lachlan Murdoch, the family’s current leader who will be fully in charge if his 91-year old father, Rupert, ever completely retires.This 359-page volume is a gigantic clip shop, giving us the greatest hits of everyone from Roger Ailes’s biographer, Gabe Sherman, to the Vanity Fair media writer Sarah Ellison and the investigative reporter Nick Davies, who broke so many of the details of the Murdoch newspapers’ illegal hacking of voicemails in the pages of this paper.The author’s main problem is that he has no judgment about what’s important to include and what ought to be left out. As a result he gives us equally dense accounts of Lachlan Murdoch’s early, disastrous media investments, the family’s efforts to create a new rugby competition in Australia and the sexual harassment scandal that finally ended the career of Ailes at Fox News.Manning also has no idea about which parts of this story are most important. An early section describes Rupert Murdoch’s brush with insolvency after he over-extended himself in the 1980s. But Manning never mentions the main reason: Murdoch’s vast overpayment of $3bn for Walter Annenberg’s TV Guide and his other Triangle properties in 1988, a purchase which turned out to be about as sensible as Elon Musk’s $44bn purchase of Twitter. Annenberg said he called Warren Buffet for advice about whether to take Murdoch’s bid, and Buffet replied: “Run to the bank!”None of the details of the TV Guide deal appear in these pages. Serious students of the Murdoch saga won’t learn anything new. But there are plenty of eye-popping numbers to remind most of us that the rich are not at all like you and me.The Successor opens with Lachlan relaxing with his wife on a new $30m yacht – a present for Sarah’s 50th birthday – which turns out to be a placeholder for a $175m yacht under construction in a Dutch shipyard. The couple paid “a stunning $37m for a boatshed and jetty at Point Piper, a few minutes’ drive form their $100m Bellevue Hill Mansion”.In 2007, the Murdoch family trust filed notice that each of Rupert Murdoch’s six children was getting $100m of News Corp stock, plus $50m in cash. Which sounds like a lot until you find out that after Disney paid $71bn for various Fox assets, each Murdoch child received “roughly $2bn” in Disney stock.Manning’s inability to make sensible judgments about any of this is suggested by his decision to quote the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren’s spot-on description of Fox News as a “hate-for-profit racket” – and then offer, in his very next sentence, his judgment that Lachlan was “a laid-back Australian and all-round smooth operator: spectacularly rich, impeccably mannered, handsome, open minded, adventurous, savvy, fun”.Similarly, after describing a Sydney mansion bought for $23m in 2009 and renovated for $11.7m, with room for two custom-built Porsche Panamera sedans at $300,000 each, just a few pages later Manning credulously quotes the Murdoch lackey Col Allan on Lachlan’s “deep appreciation of that part of America that’s ignored by the coastal liberal elites. I think it is true that Australia and its egalitarianism has had a profound and very positive effect on Lachlan’s nature and his cultural views”.Egalitarianism?The cost of Rupert Murdoch’s naked nepotism included a $139m settlement News Corp paid in 2013 after the Massachusetts Laborers’ Pension & Annuity Funds alleged that his children on the News Corp board “should be liable for its refusal to investigate and to stop known misconduct at the company”. It was “the largest derivative settlement in the history of Delaware’s court of chancery”.The book veers beyond implausibility when it describes the relationship between Lachlan and Tucker Carlson, who has become one of the Murdochs’ biggest cash cows by pushing racism, xenophobia and wild conspiracy theories. According to Manning the two men, “close in age”, share “a kind of philosophical bent”.After far-right protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 shouted “Jews will not replace us”, Kathryn Hufschmid, married to Lachlan’s brother James, insisted they issue a statement declaring “standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis”. According to the New York Times, Kathryn said to her husband: “If we’re not going to say something about fucking Nazis marching Virginia, when are we going to say something?” Lachlan never followed his brother’s lead.The pervasive power of Rupert Murdoch: an extract from Hack Attack by Nick DaviesRead moreCarlson refused to condemn the neo-Nazi protesters and did “a bizarre segment on slavery in which he listed good people who had owned slaves, including Plato, the Aztecs and Thomas Jefferson”.To his credit, Manning quotes the judgment of the activist group Media Matters, that Fox News had become “an unchained pro-Trump propaganda outlet that promotes white nationalism” just “as Lachlan Murdoch’s control over the network steadily increased … he is happy to profit from the forces he continues to unleash”.But then, incredibly, the author describes Lachlan as devoted to “a vibrant marketplace of ideas, serving to raise the standard of public debate”, which “must offer a diversity of news and opinion … His closest advisers say a belief in free speech, in all its diversity, is Lachlan’s ‘north star’”.Why would anyone trust an author who can’t distinguish between racism for profit and celebration of free speech?
      The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch is published in the US by Sutherland House Books
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