A three-word headline and two tweets have cost Fairfax Media $200,000 after Treasurer Joe Hockey successfully sued for defamation.
Mr Hockey sought substantial damages over the publication in May last year of a story about the North Sydney Forum, a "secretive" political fundraising organisation in his electorate.
The article was run in three newspapers - including under the banner headline "Treasurer for Sale" on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Federal Court Judge Richard White ruled the words "Treasurer for Sale" in large bold print on an SMH advertising placard were defamatory and Mr Hockey is owed damages of $120,000.
Two similarly-worded messages posted by The Age on Twitter were also deemed defamatory, with damages set at $80,000.
But Justice White did not uphold Mr Hockey's claims regarding the articles themselves.
The treasurer launched three parallel actions against the publishers of the SMH, The Age and The Canberra Times over the articles, related posters and tweets.
The articles said Mr Hockey was providing privileged access to a select group in return for donations to the Liberal Party via the North Sydney Forum, and that the forum's activities were not disclosed fully to election funding authorities.
"Apart from the print version of the Canberra Times, each publication included prominently the words `Treasurer for Sale' or `Treasurer Hockey for Sale'," Justice White said on Tuesday.
Justice White also found that SMH editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir, who came up with the "Treasurer for Sale" headline, wanted to "get back at" Mr Hockey after the treasurer had insisted on a correction and apology in relation to an article published earlier in 2014.
"I consider that he was ... motivated by his animus towards Mr Hockey and that he sought a headline which would be hurtful of, or damaging to, Mr Hockey," Justice White said.
But Justice White found that an ordinary reasonable reader of the articles themselves would "not have regarded the articles as conveying that Mr Hockey's conduct was corrupt, let alone that he was `peddling influence'".
"Instead, they would have understood the articles to be conveying that Mr Hockey was engaged in a non-corrupt form of fundraising which used the allure of his office," Justice White wrote in his findings, which run to 127 pages.
During a high-profile trial, Mr Hockey in evidence said he was shocked and angry when he learned about the articles, which he believed painted him as corrupt.
He said that in the days after the stories were published, his daughter asked him "whether someone was trying to buy me", and his father broke down in tears.
A Fairfax Media spokesman flagged a possible appeal, saying the company's lawyers would consider the lengthy judgment "before determining its position".
He also pointed to Justice White's finding that "much of the hurt and harm in respect of which he seeks compensation is attributable to the publications which I have found not to be defamatory".
"The articles were found to be well researched and accurate," the spokesman said.
"As today's The Age and SMH reporting on donations in politics shows, Fairfax journalists remain fearless in their pursuit of information that is in the public interest."
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