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

Editor-in-chief of Wall Street Journal says those with deep pockets are launching legal challenges as a PR strategy

[Emma Tucker] 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 Truth Tellers journalism summit. “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. These days, increasingly, we’re getting legally challenged before we even get to publication.”

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Patrick Radden Keefe, the investigative journalist who uncovered the role of the Sackler family in the US opioid crisis, told the summit that there was now tension over reporting on Trump’s White House.

Radden Keefe said the administration was challenging objective truth but was also “good for business” for media companies.

He pointed to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which he said had become a “kind of a parody” as journalists denounced it while insisting they had to attend.

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Kath Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, who was also on the panel, said the challenge posed by AI and political hostility to reporting meant “reality itself feels fake”.

She said: “That has big challenges for news organisations. But it also does have big opportunities because if we stay committed to the truth and not fall into the trap of AI slop, then I think we can differentiate ourselves and show our value.”

In a speech published on Wednesday, Viner said “transparently funded journalism in the public interest” had to be part of the solution.