The Murdoch’s very bad week

Written By: - Date published: 12:58 pm, April 23rd, 2023 - 16 comments
Categories: Deep stuff, Donald Trump, Media, media abuse, us politics - Tags:

Rupert Murdoch and his family have had a very bad week.

They settled the claim by payment of $787.5 million to Dominion Voting Systems which, given Dominion is worth maybe as much as $226 million is a pretty hefty pay out.  Dominions owners and lawyers will be grinning all the way to the bank.

Fox has reserves of about $4 billion so it has the ability to write a cheque.  But this will clearly hurt it.

Lachlan Murdoch then surrendered in the claim against Cricky, a small Australian news company which produces extraordinarily good articles but is nevertheless a minnow when comparted to the Murdoch stable of companies.

The capitulation is not surprising given that Crikey had in its defence raised evidence released from depositions in the Doinion case and that evidence would be subject to analysis and cross examination.  Crikey can now ask for costs.  I hope they go to town.

The Guardian explans what happened in these terms:

On Friday, just days after Fox News reached a $US787.5m settlement with Dominion in the US defamation lawsuit, Murdoch’s lawyers filed one line in Australia’s federal court to discontinue “the whole of the proceedings”.

The whole of the proceedings was a defamation case Murdoch had brought against an Australian publication last August for daring to link him to the 6 January Capitol riots.

After hundreds of hours spent in preliminary court battles and thousands of pages of discovery, he simply dropped his case against the Australian media company Private Media, the publisher of news website Crikey.

This was the second time in a week Murdoch had walked away from a legal challenge, with this bill certain to be significantly less but still likely in the millions.

It was quite the backflip by the 50-year-old media mogul whose legal case has played out in lurid media headlines for eight months. He launched the proceedings after Crikey named the Murdoch family as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the US Capitol riot.

Written by Crikey’s political editor, Bernard Keane, the article did not name Lachlan Murdoch but was headlined “Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator”.

The background to these cases is well known.  Fox News was burned by declaring Biden the winner of Arizona.  This was the actual result.  But it did not fit the false narrative that Trumpo and co were trying to create.

To prevent sagging viewere numbers Fox then began pushing the Trump marrative of a stolen election heavily and defamed Dominion Voting Systems on the way.  Crikey went out on a limb and bravely yet accurately described the effect that Fox was having on democracy and the second case ensued.

The two back downs are very good news for democracy.  But there is still the problem that a significant part of America’s population have their extreme views baked in.  The exposure of reality do not appear to be having an effect on those views.

The forces of evil also came up with a really cooked conspiracy over another company,  Smartmatic, which is also involved in voting machines.

Its case also rely on a series of whoppers told by Fox hosts, who alleged amongst other things that Smartmatic was involved in 2020 election counts in six battleground states, and that it was founded in Venezuela at the behest of corrupt dictators.  It was involved in the count in Los Angeles County only and was formed in Florida.  That gives you a sense of the level of fact checking that happened before Fox launched into its attack on Smartmatic.

That trial is ongoing.  Bring popcorn.

16 comments on “The Murdoch’s very bad week ”

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  1. Incognito 1
    23 April 2023 at 1:41 pm

    People no longer believe a news source because they trust it. They now trust a news source because they believe it.

    • aj 1.1
      23 April 2023 at 4:12 pm

      Are the words trust and belief interchangeable?

      Trust and believe are two words that have similar meanings. Although many people think that these two words are interchangeable, there is a subtle difference between them based on their meaning. Trust means to have confidence in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone and believe means to accept something as true, genuine, or real. This is the main difference between trust and believe. In addition, trust can be used as a noun and a verb whereas believe is a verb.

      https://pediaa.com/difference-between-trust-and-believe/

      • Incognito 1.1.1
        23 April 2023 at 4:27 pm

        I like that, thanks. I don’t think they are truly interchangeable, as in synonymous, but there’s considerable overlap.

        Trust is earned and easily destroyed. Believe is more of a given and more durable (or stubborn).

  2. Ad 2
    23 April 2023 at 2:42 pm

    The arc of history bending toward justice takes so long that its just a pain in the ass.

  3. Macro 3
    23 April 2023 at 9:07 pm

    Regrettably Faux News continues with its sad twisted view of reality served up with bile and venom for its viewers who demand it. They have learned nothing and it's viewers remain as deeply ill-informed and bitter as previously. Faux News has gone down a very deep rabbit hole, and there is no way they can get out without a serious loss of audience.

    Fox News has continued just where it left off, serving viewers a largely imagined, and utterly terrifying, version of the US: one where trans people are on the warpath, where people in New York City are never more than 6ft from either a rat or being murdered, and where the government is attempting to “send away” Fox News viewers to an undefined but ominous sounding “camp”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/22/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-tucker-carlson

    • Peter 3.1
      24 April 2023 at 9:12 am

      For all the Fox-Dominion case, nothing will change. It'll just be business as usual.

      • tc 3.1.1
        24 April 2023 at 10:03 am

        sadly yes, the cessation of the action on Crikey was because Dominion had done such a good job carefully wading through the fox network collecting emails and testimony it provided their lawyers with plenty of material.

        Crikey better be careful as clan murdoch play for keeps and they'll not like having to give that action up….goddam pesky facts.

        • Bearded Git 3.1.1.1
          24 April 2023 at 10:41 am

          It's Faux News that has to be careful. Crikey knows exactly what it is doing.

  4. Bazza64 4
    24 April 2023 at 9:29 am

    A great outcome for democracy, it’s gets tiring with all the Trump supporters still ranting about the stolen election.

    $785 mill $us is a massive settlement & Murdoch will feel it. Hope there is a loss of status for Fox, but unlikely to do any long term damage.

    • tc 4.1
      24 April 2023 at 10:12 am

      Unlikely they'll feel the cash impact, they had 1.3B on hand in dec 22 and debt's never been an issue should it be required as the banks love rupert….they've made lots of money off his leveraging over the decades.

    • Tricledrown 4.2
      25 April 2023 at 12:13 am

      Smartmatic is suing Fox for $2.7 billion a says its going through with its court case even if there is a chance of loosing just to expose Foxes underhanded tactics.

  5. SPC 5
    24 April 2023 at 1:48 pm

    Can all the good works of those of Australia outweigh the harm done to the world by Rupert Murdoch?

  6. Ad 6
    24 April 2023 at 2:00 pm

    Fox is clearly able to be held accountable for what it publishes, whereas on the other side of the USA Twitter as the obvious Fox replacement continues on its merry way "publishing" totally unregulated and destroying all traditional media in its path.

    If you really succeeded in killing Fox, Twitter would reign supreme.

  7. Mike the Lefty 7
    24 April 2023 at 7:54 pm

    Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch. Live from Drury Lane.

    "We are honestly so f…ng sorry!"