Author Clementine Ford will receive $39,000 in damages after settling a defamation action with Nine Entertainment after the renowned feminist commentator took legal action against the executive editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Ford filed a defamation lawsuit against Tory Maguire over public comments alleging she engaged in “vile and personal attacks” on journalists and editors at the mastheads.
Federal Court judge Jayne Jagot ordered the publisher and Maguire to pay Ford $39,000 in damages and accrued legal costs, expected to come to about $20,000.
Papers for the suit were lodged last month in the Federal Court by Ford’s high-profile solicitor Rebekah Giles, who recently represented former attorney-general Christian Porter in his discontinued defamation case against the ABC.
Ford, a former columnist for the then Fairfax mastheads, sensationally resigned in February 2019, claiming her employers “threatened to fire” her for calling Scott Morrison a “f***ing disgrace” on Twitter. At the time, the company had introduced a new social media policy that said employees were not allowed to “disrespect the office of the PM”.
In November, Ford participated in an interview about her new book for publication in the papers’ Spectrum section.
The interview appeared on the Herald and Age websites on January 20 this year for a short time before it was abruptly pulled. It also didn’t appear in print.
Maguire issued a statement to The Guardian later that month, confirming the interview was “published in error”.
She said Ford “spent years making vile and personal attacks on the journalists and editors of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age after the mastheads stopped publishing her column”.
“I had knocked back a pitch for an interview with her, but there was a breakdown in communication and it was commissioned and published in error. I have pulled it from Spectrum and taken it down out of respect for my team,” Maguire said.
Ford, via Ms Giles, sent a concerns notice back in February to Nine, seeking an apology – which the media empire promptly “declined”.
Ford filed defamation proceedings on March 8 against Maguire and her former employer Nine Entertainment. She alleged that she had been defamed and was seeking general and aggravated damages, costs and a commitment Nine wouldn’t publish any “defamatory imputation” again.
The company is “vicariously liable for the conduct of Maguire” in her capacity as executive editor, Ford’s lawyers said in the statement of claim.
According to the court documents, Ford claimed Maguire’s comments suggested the author’s alleged conduct was “so egregious that it warrants the executive editor to intervene to protect the journalists and editors of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age” and that she “behaved vengefully and abusively toward her former colleagues” after the newspapers “refused to publish her coxjmtzywlumn”.
They also argued that Maguire’s comments “caused serious harm to Ford’s reputation” as a journalist and feminist who is well known for “championing women’s rights, such that an allegation that she engaged in vile attacks against other women is particularly damaging”.
The matter was supposed to be heard for the first time on Tuesday, but the parties engaged in settlement discussions and came to an agreement.
Under the orders made by Justice Jagot, Nine will pay the $39,000 in damages and Ford’s legal costs.
In a statement, Ford said the judgment in her favour proved the comments made were defamatory and was not just a win for her but for all women who are “relentlessly attacked and misrepresented by media organisations”.
“Robust dialogue and even disagreement must always be celebrated in the public sphere, but I will not stand by as mendacious lies are put forward about me and my conduct towards my colleagues,” she said in a statement.
“The entry of judgment in my favour today by consent represents an acceptance that the statement made by Tory Maguire about me and against me was false and defamatory, and I feel vindicated in this outcome.”
