Rupert Murdoch’s oldest son Lachlan on Friday suffered an early setback in his defamation case against a small Australian news site that accused his family of being “co-conspirators” in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of Fox Corporation, filed his suit against Crikey in August, the day after the site took out a full-page ad in TheNew York Times daring him to sue over an article published on Crikey’s site that slammed the Murdoch family for their alleged role in fomenting the riot. “The Murdochs and their slew of poisonous Fox News commentators are the unindicted co-conspirators of this continuing crisis,” the Crikey article read. On Friday, Justice Michael Wigney refused a request from Murdoch’s lawyers to throw out significant parts of Crikey’s defense ahead of the trial scheduled for March 2023. “I’m not persuaded it’s appropriate to strike out any aspects of Crikey’s defense,” Wigney said.
