Alan Jones sues SBS over racism, lying and paedophilia claims
Former radio king Alan Jones is taking SBS to court over an episode of The Feed which labelled him a racist, misogynist, liar, and paedophile earlier this year.
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Sky News presenter Alan Jones is suing SBS for defamation, claiming it ran a segment which branded him as a racist, misogynist, liar and paedophile.
Documents filed in the Federal Court reveal the former 2GB heavyweight launched legal action against the public broadcaster last week over a segment on its program The Feed.
Aired on May 12, the day Jones announced he would retire from radio for health reasons, The Feed broadcast an episode with a “tribute” mocking his career.
A transcript of the episode showed that The Feed presenter Alex Lee said Jones had “spread lies and fake news” about climate change, “gleefully used racial slurs” and “made a career out of bullying people”.
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“Alan Jones spoke to the fears of every xenophobe and misogynist in the country,” Ms Lee said.
“He secretly took money from companies to spruik their products on air, was arrested once, and sued for defamation more times than I can count. Oh, and he was on the radio for a bit.”
Ms Lee also claimed Jones had “undermined” the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic and overly criticised female politicians. She also alleged he had written a love letter to a school student.
The episode featuring the clip was posted to SBS catch-up service SBS OnDemand and social media, but has since been deleted from all sites.
Jones’ legal team, Sue Chrysanthou SC and Kieran Smark SC, filed documents for 10 defamatory imputations against Jones by SBS.
The barristers said the “over-sensationalised” allegations made against Jones “greatly injured” his reputation and SBS had made no attempt to give him the right of reply before the clip aired.
“The applicant has been greatly injured in his business, personal and professional reputation and has been and will be brought into public disrepute, odium, ridicule and contempt,” the barristers wrote in the document.
“In circumstances where the nature of the material, being the making of seriously defamatory statements alleging criminality … were such that the allegations should have been put to the applicant so that he could respond to and deny the allegations.”
Ms Chrysanthou and Mr Smark also argued the clip’s allegations were likely to be repeated by other media outlets.
Jones is seeking damages and aggravated damages, an order stopping SBS and Ms Lee from repeating the allegations, an order to delete the clip permanently, and costs.
SBS is yet to officially respond to the documents filed against the company.