Red Rag

Looks like Crikey’s in the shit again, on the eve of the handover to new owners. Media monitors Rehame are suing over a piece that did not name the company, but which outlined some dodgy practices that are allegedly going on in that industry.

Christian Kerr is apparently going to be personally sued, even though he was not involved at all in publishing the piece.

I’ll back Crikey to the hilt on this one. It’s funny that the law suit comes just after the sale, now that there are deeper pockets to pursue (on the other hand, pursuing Christian seems to be shameless bullying).

The case also has serious implications for anyone who publishes their thoughts — which is to say, bloggers. Thankfully, Crikey appears ready to fight.

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Subject: Stop the party – Rehame to sue the world over Crikey insider’s account

Wednesday, March 9, 2005, 11.32pm AEST (28 minutes for control of Crikey changes hands)

Dear 16,000-strong Crikey Army,

Just when you thought you’d never be hearing from Stephen Mayne as Crikey publisher again…

It’s drama to the last at Crikey folks as it looks like we’re about to cop our first new writ in more than three years.

I arrived home exhausted at 6.30pm this evening having just sent the last edition and looking forward to handing control of Crikey to the new owners at midnight. Mrs Crikey was getting ready for a kindergarten committee meeting so I had my hands full doing the baths and dinner for our three children under four.

It was going to be a busy night with various transition matters to be tied up, a final life members update to be sent out and stories to be written for the first edition of the new Crikey. Alas, none of that has materialized because a quick peak at the email at around 7pm revealed that Rehame owner and managing director Peter Maher sent the following message to his 250 staff across the nation this afternoon:

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MESSAGE TO ALL STAFF FROM PETER MAHER

From: Peter Maher [mailto:peter.maher@rehame.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 9 March 2005 4:39 PM
To: ‘all@rehame.com’
Subject: Crikey Proceedings

Dear People,

As most of you would be aware by now, there was a most upsetting article published on the Crikey website this week that contained both inaccurate and confidential information about our clients. The person who supplied this information to Christian Kerr at Crikey was (name withheld) who was employed as a (position and office withheld).

(Name withheld) says that he was told by Crikey that there would not be a problem in supplying this information even though he told them that he had signed an employment contract that explicitly states he cannot reveal to any person any information concerning the organisation, business finances, transactions or affairs of Rehame and its clients.

We take this matter most seriously and we are sick and tired of the amount of inaccurate and damaging material that has been published about Rehame on the Crikey site. It is also totally unsatisfactory for any of our clients to feel threatened by the fact that any confidential dealings they may have with us can be disclosed to both their and our competitors in such a reckless and non-accountable manner.

We have a right to protect our business and also a right to protect the integrity of what we do. We have taken instructions from our legal advisors who advise us that we have a most compelling case to present before the courts and that it would be in our best interests to do so.

Within a week from today we will initiate legal proceedings in the Victorian Supreme Court against Crikey and its owners, and also against individuals, Christian Kerr from Crikey and (name withheld).

Let this matter have its day in court and let the courts decide what damages are applicable and payable to Rehame following the actions of Crikey, Christian Kerr and (name withheld).

We have also been advised that there was another article published by Crikey this week from a person referred to as Molly Monitor. This person we know as a disgruntled former employee who has conducted a campaign of email harassment against Rehame and me personally for the past three years.

I know what was published this week by Crikey was most upsetting for a lot of you. Please feel assured that we will do everything in our power to protect ourselves from those who publish this inaccurate and slanderous material that we read this week. These people must be made accountable and within a week from today we shall take the first steps in the journey to find out exactly what this accountability is worth.

Regards

Peter Maher
Managing Director
Rehame – News You Need

Tel: +61 (0) 3 9646 6966
Mob: +61 (0) 419 301 110
peter.maher@rehame.com

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SETTING MR MAHER STRAIGHT

So, the man we have dubbed “the John Singleton of Melbourne” is about to embark on yet another piece of litigation in the conduct of his media monitoring business. It seems to be his preferred way of doing business. Who can forget that $500,000 claim against the Bracks Government a couple of years back.

I need to set him straight on a few things. Firstly, it is absolutely outrageous that he has named an individual like this when he has no evidence to support the claim. The scenario he paints is fanciful.

Crikey never has and never will reveals sources. However, we have received information from numerous Rehame insiders over the years, especially at the moment when so many staff are being retrenched. Indeed, we’ve been tipped off about this latest Peter Maher staff email by multiple Rehamers.

From what I can tell, this tactic is all about frightening Rehame staff into not leaking any more information at a time when Maher’s business is struggling from the loss of big government contracts.

However, there are many disgruntled current and former Rehamers out there and I’ll be sending this final Old Crikey sealed section to all 250 Rehame staff through the all@rehame.com address that Maher used to outrageously slander us this afternoon. After that, we may find more information comes our way and we’re especially interested in gathering information about Rehame’s sale of Crikey material without a license.

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WHO SHOULD REHAME SUE?

The most bizarre aspect of Maher’s scatter gun litigation strategy is his plan to sue our political correspondent Christian Kerr who had nothing to do with the piece appearing on our website.

Like I’ve done with many Rehame people, I made direct contact with the person concerned and asked if they would write a piece on life inside the media monitoring industry.

The person then emailed the piece back to me and I made the decision to put it on the site. Christian didn’t even know about this sequence of events.

Maher seems to have really got the tiger by the tail in assuming that because Christian Kerr writes the Rehame Top 40 each week, he somehow must have been responsible for soliciting and publishing the piece.

The other point of this email tonight is to set Maher straight as to who he should sue. The new owners of Crikey, Private Media Partners, take control at midnight tonight.

PMP’s Eric Beecher and Diana Gribble have had absolutely nothing to do with this episode. The story in question was removed from the website within three minutes of Rehame’s legal threat rolling off the fax on Tuesday afternoon.

Therefore, if Rehame sues either PMP or Christian Kerr, Maher will be paying their costs because they had nothing to do with the publication and they have put on notice to that effect.

If Peter wants to sue, he should sue Crikey Media Pty Ltd, publisher of the website until midnight, and Stephen Mayne, the sole director and publisher of Crikey.

I asked for the piece and I chose to publish it without any reference to anyone else. I’m your man, Peter.

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THE PR OF MEDIA COMPANIES SUING EACH OTHER

Having just hit Australia’s most powerful email list with details of this drama, emails will be flying back and forth across the country today as hacks, flacks and transcribers debate the merits of what the pugnacious Mr Maher is proposing.

We would not be surprised if Mr Maher was reminded by a few people that shock jock Steve Price damaged himself and made Crikey when he pursued an ill-considered defamation action against Stephen Mayne and Crikey Media Pty Ltd in the Victorian Supreme Court back in 2001.

Crikey’s revenues leapt from $10,000 a month to $30,000 on the back of that action and Steve Price cost his company $170,000 recovering $50,000 and then saw him hit by the Curse of Crikey as he went to Sydney and was destroyed in the ratings by Alan Jones.

It would not surprise us if people like Pricey and our legions of other enemies emailed Peter Maher today urging him to proceed. However, dozens of Rehame clients are subscribers and supporters of Crikey and they might not take too kindly to such a move.

Similarly, it is not a good look for a media monitoring company to conduct a witchhunt against an alleged whistleblower when the media relies and thrives on people talking openly and freely about matters of public interest.

In the case of Rehame, we are talking about large amounts of taxpayers and public company funds being expended. Did Esso and BHP really spend $1 million on media monitoring after the 1988 Longford gas explosion as our story suggested? Tell us it ain’t true, Mr Maher!

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WHAT SORT OF A CASE DOES REHAME HAVE AGAINST CRIKEY?

The piece in question only dealt with “the media monitoring industry”. It was careful not to name Rehame as it outlined some of the industry practices.

Rehame’s lawyers alleged it was defamatory but so far we have not been informed of any aspect of the story that wasn’t accurate.

We’ve offered them a right of reply and asked that they identify the inaccurate aspects of the story, but so we have not heard back from their lawyer.

Unlike with Nick Bolkus and Steve Price, this time we think our position is strong. Truth is a defence and at this point we’re not aware of anything in Trenna Transcript’s piece that wasn’t true. If Rehame points out any errors, we’ll be more than happy to correct the record.

[...]

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HOW DOES THE OLD CRIKEY FIGHT A CASE

Seeing as I have absolutely no influence over Crikey from midnight tonight, the lines in the legal policy about publishing material on the Crikey website are not applicable.

However, if Rehame does sue, it would be my intention to vigorously defend the matter and establish a special purpose website — something like www.insiderehame.com — to publish all the documents and relevant material from the case.

Rehame would firstly have to establish that the practices disclosed in our piece do not occur and then prove that this caused damage.

Establishing both of these points will require a lot of evidence, documentation, affidavits, transcripts and the like — all of which I would propose publishing on the special purpose Rehame website established for the court case.

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WHAT WE SENT TO REHAME’S LAWYER

This is the perfectly polite and accommodating email that we emailed to Rehame’s lawyer on receiving the first legal threat on Tuesday afternoon:

Attention John Sinisgalli
Lawyer to Rehame
jsinisgalli@tsz.com.au
3.30pm, Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Dear John,

thank you for your latest legal threat this afternoon regarding material published on Crikey about your client, Rehame. As requested, I removed the story by “Trenna Transcript” from our website within three minutes of your fax arriving at 2.30pm pending advice from you as to the aspects of the story which your client believes are either inaccurate or defamatory.

Crikey has a clear and transparent corrections policy in which we remove or correct material which is inaccurate or unfair. We also encourage people that have been written about to have their say in a prominent right of reply.

At this stage we remain unclear about what is specifically wrong with the Trenna Transcript story and await your advice but will happily publish the Rehame side of the story if your client wishes to submit a letter for publication.

As to the identity of the author, Crikey has received numerous contributions from people working in the media monitoring industry but never discloses their identity, as we won’t be on this occasion.

Finally, on another matter. I have been meaning to contact you about Rehame’s practice of archiving Crikey material and selling it to clients without a licence. I have in my files an affidavit prepared by a Rehame employee for radio broadcaster Steve Price in 2001 which clearly shows you were keeping an archive of Crikey.

Could you please advise for how long this practice has taken place? I would be interested in coming to a licensing agreement with Rehame in the future but am most concerned about this past practice.

Looking forward to hearing back from soon and please confirm receipt of this email as soon as possible.

Yours Sincerely

Stephen Mayne

Publisher
www.crikey.com.au

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CRIKEY’S LEGAL POSITION OVER REHAME MONITORING OUR WEBSITE

Ever since a Rehame employee provided an affidavit for Steve Price swearing that he had archived copies of a whole range of Crikey website and sealed section material from 2000 and 2001, I’ve been meaning to take action against Rehame for selling our material without a license.

Rehame is now a signed up member of CAL, the Copyright Agency Ltd, and therefore undertakes to abide by the various conditions of that license.

We have had some very interesting communications from Rehame insiders about their monitoring of our website and will be seeking further information from current and former Rehame staff about the revenues they have generated by selling our unlicensed copyrighted material to clients such as Steve Price and his lawyers.

If the gloves really do come off, it would be my intention to commence legal proceedings against Rehame in this respect.

While Private Media Partners obviously have no involvement in any Rehame action against Crikey, I wouldn’t be surprised if they sought a licensing agreement with Rehame in the near future.

If you have ever been forwarded Crikey material by members of the media monitoring industry, please reply to this email or email maynestep@hotmail.com with all the details as I will now have the time, money and inclination to pursue this matter.

There’s never a dull moment at Crikey. It’s been drama to the very last and our legal stoushes will make a very interesting chapter in the book, if it ever gets written.

Now, it’s time to work up a couple of yarns for the first edition of the new Crikey.

Keep doing ya best, goodnight, goodbye and good luck, Stephen Mayne