World’s most powerful are suing media outlets before stories are even published, says editor

Powerful figures are increasingly suing media outlets before they have even published a story, the editor of the Wall Street Journal has said. Emma Tucker , whose title is being sued by Donald Trump over its reporting of his relationship with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein , said the act of reporting itself was now under threat from the use of lawfare . She said the tactic of suing newspapers before they had published a story had become an established PR strategy of the powerful amid greater distrust of the established media. “One of the biggest challenges to us now isn’t so much what happens afterwards,” Tucker told the Harry Evans investigative journalism summit, named after the former Sunday Times editor. “It’s what happens before you even publish. That is a massive challenge for us. “Increasingly it is the case that before you even get to publication, lawsuits come raining down on you – a whole torrent of legal letters come your way. Deep-pocketed people [are] doing this as a PR strategy, because then other journalists then write up ‘look, so-and-so is suing the Wall Street Journal for some reporting that they’re doing’.” She added: “The Trump story [ about his alleged letter to Epstein ] epitomised how difficult and expensive these stories are. But at least the defamation came after we’d published. …