reporting is the most expensive journalism and the least commercially rewarded.
A single story can take a year and may never be published.
The legal cost arrives before publication rather than after it.
Lawyers read each , and each reading shortens the claim that can be made.
That process improves accuracy and also removes material that is true but hard to prove.
The is structural: the subject of an investigation is usually far better funded than the publisher.
A claim does not have to succeed to work.
The cost of defending it can close a small , and everybody in the sector knows this.
Several have introduced rules against claims whose purpose is to exhaust rather than to win.
A judge can such a case early and award costs against the person who brought it.
The remedy works only where a judge is willing to decide quickly, which is not the norm.
Funding models have shifted in response.
Non-profit newsrooms, funded by foundations and readers, now produce a large share of investigative output.
They also depend on a small number of donors, which is a different rather than an escape from it.
Shared legal funds across several s are the least discussed and the most promising answer.