Murdoch drops Crikey defamation case
April 21, 2023
Fox Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch has ended a defamation lawsuit against an Australian online political site, just days after Fox settled the defamation case with Dominion Voting Systems in the US.
Murdoch sued Private Media in August, alleging that he was libelled by an opinion piece in Crikey, an online news site that linked his family to the January 2021 Capitol riots in the US.
Private Media said the article didn’t defame Murdoch and the case was due to go to trial in federal court in Sydney in October.
John Churchill, Murdoch’s lawyer, said Murdoch was confident that he would have won the case at trial.
“However, he does not wish to further enable Crikey’s use of the court to litigate a case from another jurisdiction that has already been settled and facilitate a marketing campaign designed to attract subscribers and boost their profits,” he said.
Crikey, in a statement on its website, called the decision a victory for public interest journalism.