> After two months of being stonewalled by the Theranos P.R. team, Carreyrou told me an entourage of lawyers arrived at the Journal’s Midtown Manhattan offices at one P.M. on June 23. Interesting how Theranos tried to threaten the Wall Street Journal. Threatening journalists, even through legalistic means, sounds like a particularly dumb move: if nothing else it proved they were on the right track.
Newspapers struggle to pay the bills, though. If it looks like a lawsuit will cost a lot of money, many papers will just walk. It also increases the cost of fact checking the story.
What is this assertion based on? News organizations large and small carry insurance to protect them from lawsuits like this.
Will the general counsel grill the newsroom leadership to make sure they can back up what's being printed and that they're not violating the law? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean they will be cowed by threats of nuisance lawsuits.