Nine has settled the defamation case launched against them by author and women’s rights activist, Clementine Ford.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the legal proceedings came in response to comments executive editor, Tory Maguire, provided to The Guardian in January, in which she confirmed it had been her decision to remove a recent interview article with Ford – who was promoting her new book at the time, How We Love – from Nine Entertainment publications due to her history of “vile attacks” on masthead reporters.
SMH reported that the judge presiding on the case, the Federal Court Justice Jayne Jagot made an entry of judgement in favour of Ford and then both parties came to a settlement agreement.
Nine will now cover Ford’s legal bills and pay her $39,000 thousand in damages.
Ford took to Twitter to share the verdict and wrote, “I’m very grateful for my excellent legal team, and glad this has been resolved in my favour.
“The statement made by Tory Maguire about me and my conduct to former colleagues was false and defamatory, and not even Nine was prepared to defend it.”
https://twitter.com/clementine_ford/status/1511125697309282308
Of course, Ford use to write for SMH but published her last article with them in 2019.
After Ford cut ties with the masthead, she tweeted, “I expect at some point a line will be trotted out about how I was ‘difficult’. Don’t believe it. I was a loyal and committed contributor for 7 years and they benefited greatly from me being connected to the masthead”
https://twitter.com/clementine_ford/status/1090728061945802753?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1090728061945802753%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bandt.com.au%2Ffairfax-dead-controversial-columnist-clementine-ford-quits-censorship-fury%2F
Interesting.
