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

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.