Just After Fox News Settled With Dominion, Lachlan Murdoch Dropped His Censorial SLAPP Suit Against Crikey

Last fall, we wrote about Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan (who seems to have won out over brother James in the Succession-style fight to lead his father’s nonsense peddling media outfit) lost his shit over an opinion piece in the Australian independent media organization Crikey and sued them for defamation in Australia.

At the time, we noted the Streisand Effect inherent in his decision, but also mentioned how ridiculous it was for Fox News to be screaming “free speech” as a defendant in the Dominion defamation case, while simultaneously screaming “defamation” down in Australia, all because of a throwaway line at the end of an op-ed mainly about Donald Trump, that mentions in passing how the Murdochs helped support Trump’s ridiculous election lies (you know, the ones that Fox was fighting to say were free speech in the Dominion suit).

It seemed that we were not alone in recognizing the link between the Dominion suit and the Crikey suit. Crikey was actually using many of the public details from the Dominion suit to argue its case in Australia.

While there was plenty of attention paid last week to Fox’s $787.5 million settlement with Dominion, it’s also worth noting that in that same week, Lachlan dropped the defamation case against Crikey in Australia. He claims he did so because of the Domnion settlement, which makes no sense at all to me.

Lachlan Murdoch has dropped his defamation proceedings against the independent Australian media company Private Media, the publisher of Crikey.

Murdoch launched defamation proceedings in August against the independent news site over an article published in June that named the Murdoch family as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the US Capitol attack. The CEO of the small publisher hailed the news on Friday as a “victory for free speech”.

The Fox Corporation CEO said he was ending the case in light of the settlement in the US of the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News.

Lachlan’s other comments are equally strange:

Murdoch said he was confident he would have won but 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”.

Dude. You sued them. Now you’re mad that they used the Streisand Effect to try to defend themselves? That’s ridiculous. And, I don’t see how the Dominion settlement changes the equation in any meaningful way. If anything settling that lawsuit means that fewer embarrassing things about Fox came out during the trial. That said, some are saying that the fear of having to testify about the Dominion revelations in the Crikey case might have helped contribute to the decision to drop the case. Nothing like a the possibility of having to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth that makes some people look for a way out.

Of course, it’s possible that Murdoch would have won, but that has more to do with the absolutely dismal state of defamation law Down Under, which we’ve reported on many times in the past. But there have been some attempts to fix that, and many saw this case as the first real test of the new rules. But, alas, it’ll have to wait for some other SLAPP suit in Australia.

For what it’s worth, multiple news reports say that Lachlan dropping the case likely means he’ll have to pay a significant portion of Crikey’s legal fees. So, congrats, Lachlan, as even you admit that the lawsuit was turned into marketing and subscriptions for Crikey, and in the end you may have had to pay for both sides’ legal fees. Just great work all around.