A judge dismissed a Wisconsin politician's defamation suit against a newspaper, but the legal fees may still shutter the paper.

• A Wisconsin politician filed a defamation suit against a local newspaper, and the suit was dismissed.
• Even so, the legal fees from the lawsuit threaten to bankrupt the The Wausau Pilot & Review.
• It follows a trend of politicians filing defamation suits that don't have to succeed to do damage.

Politicians across the board may be honing in on using defamation lawsuits as a form of punishment against the media reports they object to.

Even when those lawsuits fail, the legal fees still do immense damage to smaller, vulnerable publications.