For much of the 2010s, the journalism crisis was presented primarily as an economic crisis. As social platforms became the main gateways to information and advertising revenues, newsrooms were pressured to adapt: fix failing business models, build subscriber bases, diversify their sources of funding. Financial stability was considered the main condition for independence. If journalism could fund itself, the thinking went, it would be protected.
But it is now clear that economic independence is not enough. Legal pressures — lawsuits and threats of prosecution — can generate costs that directly affect the financial stability of media outlets, even when their business models appear sound.
In the United States, the dangers these pressures pose to newsroom financial stability became particularly visible through a legal case that led to the shutdown of the website Gawker. Funded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, this lawsuit demonstrated how legal action could be weaponized to dismantle a news organization — as we recently discussed in an episode of the podcast Journalism 2050. The case received extensive commentary in Europe, but was often perceived as an American anomaly.
This "anomaly" now appears as a more structural phenomenon. In 2024 and 2025, ABC News and CBS both accepted settlements worth several million dollars in defamation lawsuits brought by Donald Trump. In the months that followed, both organizations announced waves of layoffs, illustrating how legal conflicts can translate into direct economic consequences for newsrooms and their staff.
At the same time, certain editorial decisions made at major media outlets like The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times have reignited debates about the growing influence of owners whose broader economic interests depend on political and regulatory contexts. These developments suggest that even the most powerful media organizations are not immune to pressures capable of redefining the conditions of their editorial independence.
Victor Pickard, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, describes this moment in the United States—where journalists like Don Lemon or George Fort can be arrested while simply doing their jobs—as a "media polycrisis". In a recent essay published by the Law and Political Economy (LPE) project, he explains that lawsuits, media concentration, and politicized regulations constitute "distinct but cumulative layers of media capture", producing censorship, exclusion, and democratic failures.
A comparable dynamic is at work in Europe. SLAPPs — these strategic legal proceedings designed to intimidate and exhaust critics — are increasingly being used to pressure newsrooms, according to two reports published in February by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) and the French Observatory of Press Freedom Violations (OFALP).
The MFRR report documented 344 legal incidents involving journalists and media in Europe in 2025, including defamation suits and other judicial threats liable to generate significant financial and psychological pressure. These proceedings often target investigations covering sensitive subjects: corruption, economic interests, far-right movements, police violence, or other forms of political and economic power. In several countries, these pressures are linked to illiberal or far-right movements that openly challenge the role of independent journalism.
In some countries, like Hungary — which has fallen from 23rd to 68th place out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index over fifteen years — these dynamics are now deeply entrenched. Last month, the Mertek Media Monitor and the Rule of Law Lab at New York University published a report documenting the systematic efforts of Viktor Orbán's government to weaken independent media through legal, economic, and administrative instruments rather than direct censorship.
Today, the ruling party, Fidesz, controls directly or indirectly approximately 80% of the entire media market. The few remaining independent media outlets — including 444, Telex, Átlátszó and Válasz Online — have increasingly anchored their survival in reader funding, as access to public advertising has shrunk and media ownership has become more concentrated. Several of them have also been targeted by investigations under the 2023 sovereignty protection law: smear campaigns accusing them of being "foreign agents", repeated defamation lawsuits, and accusations of data protection violations.
In France, however, one can observe how the tension between legal pressure and financial stability manifests itself in a country long considered a relatively favorable environment for journalism. As a French media professional confided to OFALP:
"If we were ordered to pay €15,000 to the other party, we would be forced to close. We simply don't have the financial reserves needed to pay even half of what they're asking for."
As highlighted in an analysis published by Médianes, for media outlets with limited financial margins, litigation risk can quickly become existential.
StreetPress, a French investigative news outlet specializing in far-right networks and police violence, has spent over €100,000 on legal defense costs over the past two years, and is budgeting another €75,000 in expenses for 2026 — nearly equivalent to two journalist salaries. The newsroom operates on a budget of €1.5 million and has 15,500 donors: an example of a news outlet successfully funded by its readers. But these lawsuits weigh heavily on its operations.
"Even when we win, we lose money," explains Johan Weisz-Myara, founder of StreetPress. Many plaintiffs — notably public officials — can have their legal fees covered by the institutions they work for, such as government ministries or local authorities, through a mechanism called "functional protection".
« We're not just defending our journalism, he adds. We're self-funding our defense, while those pursuing us often bear no cost to launch proceedings. »
Today, the team is facing eighteen legal proceedings, compared to just a dozen a few years ago.
Not all of these cases go to trial. According to Johan Weisz-Myara, three or four out of ten proceedings are ultimately abandoned before any court decision. But the damage often occurs well before that stage. In many cases, he explains, the plaintiff's objective is not necessarily to win in court. Rather, legal action serves to create immediate pressure on a newsroom by forcing it to mobilize time and money for its defense — and sometimes to discourage further investigations before the merits of the accusations are even examined.
Pressure is also extending beyond the judicial sphere to reach political institutions. In October 2025, a parliamentary inquiry commission was launched into the "neutrality, functioning and financing" of French public broadcasting. As The Guardian reported, some observers see signs of an "era of Trumpism," in which public media are subjected to permanent political oversight.
For an American journalist — in a country where a president has shown open hostility to the press — these legal threats might seem less serious than they actually are. Europe's media polycrisis, including in countries historically favorable to journalism like France, takes a different form. But it nonetheless represents a serious warning for the future.
« The problem is not limited to StreetPress alone. We are seeing an increase in abusive lawsuits against media outlets and frequent circumvention of press freedom rights in France, » said Laure Chauvel of Reporters Without Borders.
Facing these pressures, many independent media outlets are calling for the creation of structured European funds capable of absorbing litigation-related costs. Existing mechanisms — notably the financial and legal support offered by organizations such as Media Defence, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, and the Fonds pour une presse libre — are essential, but remain fragmented and difficult to access on a large scale. Application procedures can be lengthy and often require organizational capacities that many small newsrooms lack.
At the same time, forms of cross-border cooperation are emerging. The European independent media network Sphera, the French media outlet StreetPress and the Hungarian media outlet 444 are collaborating on certain investigations and exchanging practices for managing legal risks. These collaborations are valuable. But they do not yet constitute a system.
If the 2010s were devoted to fixing journalism's business models, the 2020s are now focused on defending the very conditions for investigation and publication. Economic sustainability remains essential — but resilience must now be multifaceted: editorial, economic, legal, and technological.
It requires both internal capabilities and forms of collective solidarity. Across Europe, independent newsrooms are beginning to build these cooperations, aware that defending press freedom today depends as much on solidarity as it does on economic sustainability.
