Lachlan Murdoch, the son of Rupert Murdoch and the CEO of Fox News, doled out $840,000 in legal fees to a news publication he was suing for libel after dropping the lawsuit.

Fox News has been inundated with lawsuits and there are reportedly more on the horizon. The network is desperately attempting to keep its conservative base after losing a lot of viewers following the termination of Tucker Carlson.

The payment to Australian publisher Private Media comes after Murdoch sued over an article published by one of its papers, Crikey, according to The New York Times.

Murdoch sued Crikey’s publisher for defamation in 2022 over an opinion piece that claimed he was involved with the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The article boasted the headline, “Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator.”

Lachlan Murdoch has paid $840,000 in legal costs to a small Australian publisher after he dropped a defamation lawsuit accusing the company of linking his family to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, his lawyer said on Tuesday. https://t.co/WLbvcfzi6f

— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 23, 2023

“If Trump ends up in the dock for a variety of crimes committed as president, as he should be, not all his co-conspirators will be there with him,” Crikey’s reporter Bernard Keane wrote in June of last year. “Nixon was famously the ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ in Watergate. The Murdochs and their slew of poisonous Fox News commentators are the unindicted co-conspirators of this continuing crisis.”

Murdoch alleged that the article was both defamatory and levied a number of false accusations, including that he had conspired with former President Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election by “inciting an armed mob to march on the Capitol to physically prevent the confirmation” of election results, court documents show.

Last April, Murdoch dropped his defamation lawsuit against Private Media. The publisher was reportedly “blindsided” by it, according to The Guardian.

Murdoch claims he nixed the lawsuit because of the $787 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems. That lawsuit was settled two days before Murdoch dropped the defamation case. The Dominion Voting Systems case alleged that Fox News had damaged its reputation by peddling conspiracy theories regarding the 2020 presidential election.

(Video Credit: VICE AUNZ)

On Aug. 14, Murdoch, through his attorney, notified Private Media that he would agree to cover the company’s legal fees with the stipulation that it donate the $588,735 it received from supporters of its “Crikey Defense Fund” to the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, according to Crikey. Private Media had initially sought 1.1 million in Australian dollars from Murdoch and received 1.3 million in Australian dollars, or roughly $840,000, which is more than they had asked for.

“We will put the funds to good use, to promote greater press freedom, which is essential to a healthy democracy,” AJF’s Executive Director Peter Greste declared in a statement on Tuesday, according to TheMessenger. “This includes campaigning for a Media Freedom Act, supported by a voluntary membership that will recognize quality journalism.”

Private Media’s Chief Executive Will Hayward said he was “delighted” to donate the money provided to the outlet.

“This money was raised from the goodwill of people across Australia who believe in the importance of free speech,” Hayward said in a statement, according to The Wrap. “These funds will now go to support the alliance and its team as they champion that cause across the world.”

(Video Credit: ABC News (Australia))

Murdoch’s attorney, John Churchill, told Crikey in an interview that he believes the court would have ruled in his client’s favor had they not dropped the lawsuit.

“Mr. Murdoch said when he discontinued the proceedings that he did 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,” Churchill commented in a statement.

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