Fox's apology to Gretchen Carlson won't help Roger Ailes' threatened lawsuit against New York

Roger Ailes, former Fox News chief and current Donald Trump adviser, has hired lawyer Charles J. Harder to pursue a defamation lawsuit against New York magazine and one of its reporters, Gabriel Sherman, presumably over Sherman's reporting on the sexual harassment allegations that led to Ailes' swift and sudden departure. On Tuesday, Fox News parent company 21st Century Fox agreed to pay former anchor Gretchen Carlson a reported $20 million to settle her lawsuit against Ailes, and it also apologized "for the fact that Gretchen was not treated with the respect and dignity that she and all of our colleagues deserve."

The apology is a big deal, veteran sexual harassment attorney Debra Katz tells the Los Angeles Times. "This is something every client who walks in my office wants and I tell them to a person this is something you will never get," she said. "Companies do not apologize, particularly when there are other potential litigants out there. Typically, a standard provision in any settlement agreement is a non-admission clause, which says by virtue of paying this large sum we are not admitting any wrongdoing."

The apology also appears to validate Carlson's claims against Ailes, and therefore Sherman's reporting on them. In order to win a defamation lawsuit, you typically have to prove that the allegedly libelous reporting is false. (Harder's Gawker-slaying case for Hulk Hogan involved invasion of privacy.) In other ways, the settlement is a win for Ailes — he won't have to pay any of the $20 million settlement, even though he's named in the lawsuit, according to his lawyer, Susan Estrich, and because the case settled out of court, he won't have any of the 20 women who have accused him of sexual harassment testify against him in court (at least in this case).

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So Ailes will hold on to his $40 million golden parachute — twice what Carlson gets in the settlement. Still, "Ailes, who was, after all, Richard Nixon's media adviser, didn't have the grace to slink away," says Margaret Sullivan at The Washington Post. "If Roger Ailes believes in anything, it's the counterattack. When you're accused, losing, wounded, bleeding — hit back hard. Go for the jugular." New York, "I feel confident, would prevail in court were Ailes and company foolish enough to follow through" with the threatened lawsuit, she adds. "Of course, the former Fox News chief hasn't always exercised the best judgment. Twenty or so women could tell you all about that."