Law Commons^™

The Weaponized Lawsuit Against The Media: Litigation Funding As A New Threat To Journalism, Lili Levi

Articles

This Article identifies a new front in the current war against the media one in which billionaire private actors clandestinely fund other people's lawsuits in an attempt to censor press entities. The use of strategic litigation to shutter media outlets constitutes a major threat to the expressive order. And the current climate of press failures, institutional disaggregation, decreasing accountability journalism, and declining public trust-the very vulnerability of the press today-significantly amplifies the chilling impact of strategic third party funding. It does so whether the strategy is death-by-a-thousand litigations or titanic, bankruptcy-inducing damage verdicts.

Still, contrary to the assertions of both …