Art & Creativity Quote by Ian Hislop

The power move here is that Hislop dresses editorial judgment up as moral stubbornness, then dares you to argue with it in court. “They may well say… I will put in an injunction” isn’t just a nod to Britain’s famously plaintiff-friendly libel culture; it’s a reminder that publishing in the UK can mean doing journalism with a legal pistol on the table. The tone is almost breezy, but the stakes are punitive: the threat of prior restraint, the hush of an injunction, the rich and aggrieved leaning on the law to control narrative.

His second move is to reframe the editor’s role as gatekeeper, not gossip-monger. “No, stories don’t go in unless I’m convinced… that they’re true” reads like a rebuttal to the lazy caricature of tabloid editing as vibes-based cruelty. It’s also a subtle flex of process: writers have to persuade him, not just provide copy. In a culture where “people say” can be a publishing standard, Hislop insists on an internal burden of proof.

Then comes the real tell: “And if I’m wrong, then so be it.” That’s not recklessness; it’s ownership. He’s staking his credibility (and his magazine) on fallible human judgment rather than the cowardly alternative: never printing anything that might upset someone powerful. The subtext is editorial courage as a practiced habit, not a romantic pose, delivered with the dry shrug of someone who’s been sued enough times to know fear is its own form of censorship.