Peter Fray made redundant from Crikey ahead of Murdoch defamation trial

The saga of Crikey has taken another turn, with editor-in-chief Peter Fray being made redundant in the wake of “inappropriate” behaviour at last year’s Walkley Awards.

In November, Fray heckled the winners of the Gold Walkley during their acceptance speech. ABC’s Anne Connolly, Ali Russell, and Stephanie Zillman won Gold for their investigation State Control on Four Corners, with Fray reportedly calling out “what about Crikey?” over and over before taking to Twitter to call the ABC a “fraud.”

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It’s understood Fray believed that the award was won off “stolen” reporting from Crikey.

The Tweets have since been deleted, and Fray has since apologised for his outburst, saying that “I can’t undo my actions on that evening, as much I wish to do so.”

Four months down the line, The Australian is reporting that Fray has left his position as editor-in-chief. Fray is also the managing editor of Private Media, owner of Crikey.

The news comes as Crikey stares down the barrel of a defamation lawsuit by News Corp co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch. Murdoch was originally suing politics editor Bernard Keane alongside Fray over an opinion piece Crikey published last year linking the Murdoch family to the January 6th attacks on the US Capitol. 

The Crikey opinion piece in question, titled Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator, was initially taken down on June 29 of last year, but was restored on August 15.

In February a court ruled that Murdoch could expand his defamation claim to include Eric Beecher, chairman, publisher and co-founder of Private Media, and Will Hayward, CEO of Private Media.

The Australian reports that Fray will still be involved in the defamation proceedings, despite his redundancy from his position.

The trial between Lachlan Murdoch and Private Media is scheduled to be held in October.