Murdoch and Trump: A fight to the end?

Here, media expert John Jewell assesses US President Donald Trump's relationship with the Fourth Estate

- John Jewell

THE latest episode in the patently never-ending saga of Donald Trump's battles with the so-called “legacy media” began last week when the US President announced his decision to sue the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

Trump is alleging libel and slander, describing the newspaper of reporting a story which is “false, malicious, and defamatory”.

Trump's anger is over an article published on July 17, which alleged he sent a vulgar birthday greeting letter to billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, some years before Epstein was convicted of major sex crimes.

According to the WSJ, the letter was part of a birthday book allegedly “presented to Epstein and had a crude drawing of a female nude and ended with the message: ‘A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret”.

About the case, worth more than $10bn dollars, Trump wrote on his Truth Social site: “We have just filed a powerhouse Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, fake news ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is, the Wall Street Journal.”

Such disparaging remarks have become a feature of Trump's relationship with the mainstream media since the beginning of his first term as president in 2016. Indeed, in 2020, the Committee to Protect Journalists published an investigation that said he was effectively trying to “destroy the credibility of the press”.

But as his second term gathers momentum, it has become clear the Trump campaign has moved beyond abusive terminology and rhetoric.