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working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all some of the week's most important conversations you might have missed. President Donald Trump is suing the publisher and owner of the Wall Street Journal and seeking damages of $10 billion for alleged defamation.

Last week, the paper published an article describing a letter, they say Trump sent the disgraced

self-styled financier Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. That letter reportedly includes

a lewd drawing. The president claims he didn't write a letter and his lawsuit says it doesn't exist.

The journal's publisher says they will defend against the lawsuit.

The suit names News Corp, its chair emeritus, Rupert Murdoch, its chief executive, Robert Thompson,

and two journal reporters as defendants.

Robert Murdoch owns the journal through his companies.

In a post on

truth social, the president wrote in part that the lawsuit was filed, quote, not only on

behalf of your favorite president, me, but also in order to continue standing up for all

Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the fake news media, end quote.

The lawsuits against the journal's reporting

follows other lawsuits President Trump is filed against other media companies, including ABC News in 24,

and Paramount, the company that owns CBS News. Paramount settled monetarily with the president earlier this

month to the tune of $16 million, but the company did not issue an

apology nor admit to any wrongdoing. How is the president using legal action and the threat of

it against the media? And what does it mean for journalism at these organizations? After the break,

David Fulkenflick joins us to discuss. He's NPR's media correspondent and author of the book

Murdoch's World, The Last of the

Old Media Empires. Remember for all the latest news, be sure to visit npr.org or tune into your

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