EXCLUSIVE: News Corp has been running a rabid campaign against alleged rape survivor, Brittany Higgins, for apparently going to the media before the police while neglecting to inform the public about the fact that it was News Corp journalist, Sam Maiden, who first published an ‘exclusive’ story about the alleged Parliament House rape by Bruce Lehrmann, against Ms Higgins’s own wishes. Serkan Ozturk reports.
It’s been a vicious smear campaign over a number of months on behalf of an alleged serial rapist to harass an alleged survivor of rape led by News Corp and relying on a conspiracy to leak protected legal information involving the AFP, the Liberal Party and their PR masters at Crosby Textor, as well as Bruce Lehrmann via his desperate lawyers, and perhaps others too.
Instead of the years-long cover-up involving the Liberal Party from then-PM Scott Morrison down, News Corp and their shady backers would have you believe that the worst thing about Lehrmann’s alleged rape of Liberal colleague, Brittany Higgins, in late March 2019 in the office of their boss, then-Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, was that Labor Senator Katy Gallagher was told about it two years after it occurred and just before it was reported by the nation’s media in February 2021. Yes, told about an alleged serious crime by a victim two years after the Liberal Party had already been covering it up all that time.
WATCH: SCOTT MORRISON LIES ABOUT COVER-UP OVER ALLEGED RAPIST BRUCE LEHRMANN
Leading the charge has been none other than crusading News Corp political scribe Samantha Maiden: the very same journalist who broke the initial exclusive story on February 15, 2021 about what had allegedly happened to Ms Higgins. It was of course True Crime News Weekly which was the first media outlet to actually name Lehrmann as being the person at the centre of the scandal, two days after Maiden’s exclusive which left the alleged assailant unnamed.
Maiden’s role in the recent concerted PR campaign on behalf of Lehrmann across News Corp properties has had many interested members of the public scratching their heads and wondering why the journalist has seemingly ‘turned’ on Ms Higgins and is now doing the bidding of Lehrmann and his backers in the Liberal Party in a classic DARVO smear campaign against a victim of alleged abuse.
Well, in major revelations as set out below by True Crime News Weekly it seems that Maiden has never been on Ms Higgins’s side. And that she may have used Ms Higgins and her experiences from the very beginning to serve her own interests and career.
“I Don’t Need Your Permission!”: Maiden said she would run story
It has been revealed to True Crime News Weekly by a number of News Corp insiders that Maiden blindsided Ms Higgins by publishing the story of her experiences at Parliament House against her wishes after first learning about it from Ms Higgins’s partner, former journalist David Sharaz, over some drinks at a Canberra bar in early 2021.
“Sam Maiden and David Sharaz are good friends. They worked at Sky together, that’s public knowledge,” one News Corp insider revealed.
“This whole thing started when David and Sam went for drinks, and Brittany went as well.
“In front of Brittany but without her okay, David told Sam: ‘You’ll never believe what’s happened and what the Feds have done.’ So, they basically told Sam the whole story.
“And she said: ‘I’m running this story, whether you want me to or not. I don’t need your permission.'”
The source then continued with more details about the effect Maiden’s actions had on Ms Higgins.
“That’s how it all unfolded.
“That’s the reason for the double-barrel exclusives with Sam Maiden and Lisa Wilkinson [from Channel 10’s The Project],” the source confirmed.
“Brittany was like, ‘Well, this is my story. Fine, I know I can’t stop you running it but I’m going to go with Lisa Wilkinson to try to gain some control back.'”
The source said it was highly ironic News Corp was now running a campaign against Ms Higgins and the fact she eventually told her story to media when it was one of News Corp’s own journalists who first published the story without her permission.
“Whenever I see people criticise Brittany for making this a ‘media circus’ and going to the media before going to the cops I think it adds credibility to her as it was taken out of her hands by her partner and Sam Maiden who has been championed as the breaker of this story but in reality she took it,” the source said.
A tipple with David Sharaz at a Canberra bar led Sam Maiden to a major exclusive against the wishes of the central witness, alleged rape victim Brittany Higgins (Images: Twitter / Supplied)
Ms Higgins herself told a court late last year that she felt there was tension between Maiden and Wilkinson about who would get the exclusive rights to publishing the story.
According to a report in The Guardian, Ms Higgins told the court it increasingly “became not about me or my story” and more about who would win journalism awards by getting the exclusive.
Both Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz were contacted by True Crime News Weekly prior to the publishing of this article and informed of its contents. Neither wished to provide further comment.
Another source with knowledge of the matters started by acknowledging a salient fact that over-rides this entire scandal.
“Of course the main story is that the Liberal Party sat on this … and covered for Lehrmann and continue to this day,” the source told True Crime News Weekly.
“[But] Brittany Higgins and David Sharaz had no say on when Sam Maiden’s first article about Brittany went out.
“Sam Maiden herself was in contact with at least one Labor figure to talk about the story before it went out.
“Maiden also apparently picked the sitting day as the day for it to come out.”
Maiden Goes Quiet Over Revelations as Questions Raised Over Awards
True Crime News Weekly contacted Maiden to put the revelations to her. We did not receive a response.
We had asked Maiden why she believed she had a right to publish the story against the express wishes of an alleged victim of rape and whether she thought of herself as holding a high standard of journalistic ethics.
We had also asked Maiden if she believed she put her ego and career ahead of the express wishes of a victim of alleged rape and cover-up by the most powerful people in Australia.
We had also invited Maiden to comment on the recent conspiracy involving News Corp, AFP, the Liberal Party, Crosby Textor, as well as Bruce Lehrmann and his lawyers to leak legal documents the AFP had in its possession to run a political smear campaign against a victim of rape.
The smear campaign against Ms Higgins got into full swing coincidentally after Lehrmann had recently settled his defamation case against Maiden and News Corp over the initial exclusive story from 2021. Lehrmann remains committed to suing Channel 10 and the ABC for defamation, with lawyers for Lisa Wilkinson and Channel 10 publicly indicating they will be defending the claims on the basis of truth that Lehrmann is a rapist. Lehrmann has never threatened to sue True Crime News Weekly despite being the first media outlet to name him publicly, about six months before the nation’s corporate media eventually did.
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News Corp insiders meanwhile have revealed the truth of the matters in regards to how Maiden first got the exclusive had been weighing heavily on the shoulders of a few people.
“It’s never quite sat right with me,” one source admitted. “She won major awards for her reporting.”
Maiden’s original 2021 report of Lehrmann’s alleged rape inside Parliament House did indeed win her a slew of major awards – from a prestigious Gold Walkley to an award presented by Our Watch, an organisation considered “a national leader in the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia”.
True Crime News Weekly contacted both the Walkley Foundation and Our Watch to enquire as to whether they would seek to have Maiden’s awards returned now knowing that Higgins never gave her permission for the original story to be published.
We did not receive a response from either the Walkley Foundation or Our Watch, however a number of days after our media request was sent it was noticed that Walkleys CEO, Shona Martyn, began following True Crime News Weekly over Twitter.
The MEAA – the union for journalists – was also contacted and informed of the revelations regarding Maiden’s reporting for News Corp. The MEAA’s Journalist Code of Ethics states in part that “where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances” and “to never exploit a person’s vulnerability.” The charter also calls on journalists to “respect private grief and personal privacy.”
The MEAA was asked whether it believed Maiden had followed such principles in the reporting of her exclusive story.
We had also asked the MEAA if it was concerned that News Corp and other corporate media outlets were likely involved in a political and police conspiracy to harass an alleged survivor of rape for the benefit of the Liberal Party and an alleged serial rapist.
“MEAA does not make running judgements on the conduct of individual journalists as to do so could clearly prejudice any potential future ethics complaints or hearings,” the MEAA’s communications director, Mark Phillips, told True Crime News Weekly.
“If someone makes an ethics complaint, that will be dealt with through due process by an ethics panel after consideration of all evidence and submissions from the complainant and defendant.
“Any ethics complaints are dealt with at arms length from the industrial and organising part of the union.”
The MEAA cited privacy laws when asked if Maiden was a member but did confirm that it does not consider ethics complaints against non-members.
Another source who has previously had dealings with Maiden told True Crime News Weekly that they did not consider her to be an ethical journalist.
“Maiden is always about what gives her media profile,” the source said.
“I know from personal experience that she is a total sh*t with no morals. She doesn’t care who she f*cks over.”
Maiden’s Past Road Crimes Lead Back to Crosby Textor
This isn’t the first time Maiden is said to have trampled on the rights of others to do what she well pleases.
In 2018, Maiden was stood down by Sky News pending an investigation into claims that she had bullied junior staff members.
A month after the investigation was launched into the claims of bullying, Maiden was allowed to resign from the far-right News Corp television channel.
Just two years before those bully-boy problems, Maiden had landed herself in hot water when she was arrested for drink-driving after she drove her Hyundai Sante Fe 20 kilometres on the wrong side of the road on narrow country roads near Goulburn while police chased her in the early hours of a Sunday morning.
According to court facts, Maiden’s car was registered travelling between 80 and 110km/h and the journalist only stopped after she almost hit a parked car.
Police eventually removed Maiden from the car and handcuffed her. She was arrested and taken to Goulburn Police Station after a she returned a positive alcohol reading to a breath test at the scene. At the station, when tested, Maiden returned a breath analysis reading for alcohol of 0.136g. Maiden claimed she had been drinking champagne from 9pm until 1am on the night and suggested to police she had consumed about five glasses.
At the time of the court hearing, Maiden was warned by the magistrate that prison time could be in the offing. She was in the end instead given a 12-month section-nine good-behaviour bond for a mid-range drink-driving charge and disqualified from driving for seven months.
True Crime News Weekly has elected to remind the public about matters to do with Maiden’s drink-driving for one salient fact only: the function she was returning to her hotel from that late weekend evening was none other than the birthday party for Mark Textor, one of the founders of Crosby Textor.
The same Crosby Textor whose operatives run PR and strategy for the likes of the AFP and ASIO and have been involved in the recent orchestration of both the overt and covert PR campaign on behalf of Lehrmann and the Liberal Party. Also at the party that night was Scott Morrison who would end up giving Maiden a character reference during her tribulations in front of court.
It’s a small world. Australian politics and media even moreso.
CAN YOU HELP? True Crime News Weekly will soon be publishing more investigations into the Bruce Lehrmann Cover-Up; including looking at how the recent conspiracy between News Corp and the AFP came into place and Bruce Lehrmann’s documented sordid history of alleged sexual assault as well as his close links to police and secret security services like the AFP and ASIO.
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