Rupert Murdoch, center, and his sons, Lachlan, left, and James Murdoch, attend the 2014 Television Academy Hall of Fame in Beverly Hills, Calif. On April 21, 2023, Fox's chief executive, Lachlan Murdoch, dropped his defamation lawsuit against Australian news site Crikey, citing the Fox News settlement of a U.S. court case where the network agreed to pay nearly $800 million for the lies affecting the 2020 U.S. presidential election. On Friday, Fox Corp. chief executive Lachlan Murdoch dropped his defamation lawsuit against Australian news website Crikey, citing the Fox News settlement in the U.S. court case where the network agreed to pay almost $800 million over its lies affecting the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
The press freedom issue is a pressing question, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch's son filed the suit last August a day after executive executives at Crikey's publisher put their names to an ad in The New York Times inviting Lachlan Murdoch to sue to test the press freedom issue in court.
Murdoch's lawsuit sought the publisher, Private Media, who was its then-managing editor Peter Fray, who was also the site's editor-in-chief and Crikey's political editor, Bernard Keane.
Murdoch claimed he was defamed by Keane's column about the U.S. congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol building which Crikey published in June last year under the headlines: Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator. John Churchill, Murdoch's lawyer, said he had filed a notice of discontinuance in federal court on Friday.
Crikey has tried to introduce thousands of pages of documents from a defamation case in another jurisdiction, which has now settled, according to the Fox News settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.
In a statement, Mr Murdoch said he would be up for Crikey's legal costs. We and our client are well pleased, the firm said in a statement.
The Crikey suit was set for a three-week hearing in Sydney starting Oct. 9.
Lachlan Murdoch alleged that he had illegally conspired with former president Donald Trump to incite a mob with deadly intent to march on the Capitol to prevent the transfer of power to President Joe Biden.
In defense, Crikey had argued that Lachlan Murdoch was morally and ethically culpable for the attack on the Capitol because Fox News, under his control and management, promoted and peddled Trump's lie of the stolen election despite Lachlan Murdoch knowing it was false. The article, which did not identify Lachlan Murdoch, referred to the Murdochs and their slew of poisonous Fox News commentators.