Blogs everywhere us the Crystal Cox Case as protection to report the news and speak out; check out the disclaimer on this blog

http://mensrightsofarizona.blogspot.com/2015/10/looking-for-men-and-women-to-appear-on.html

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This blog and all other print publications by this author and the Men's Rights Group of Arizona LLC is a form of journalism and protected freedom of speech as described in case law: 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, Obsidian Finance Group LLC and Kevin Padrick v. Crystal Cox 12-35238. All Rights Will Be Strictly Enforced!"

Investigative Blogger Crystal Cox makes HISTORY and set's landmark precedent.

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Bloggers = Media for First Amendment Libel Law Purposes

by Eugene Volokh on January 17, 2014 1:34 pm in Freedom of Speech

So holds today’s Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox (9th Cir. Jan. 17, 2014) (in which I represented the defendant). To be precise, the Ninth Circuit concludes that all who speak to the public, whether or not they are members of the institutional press, are equally protected by the First Amendment. To quote the court,

The protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities, engaged in conflict-of-interest disclosure, went beyond just assembling others’ writings, or tried to get both sides of a story. As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable: “With the advent of the Internet and the decline of print and broadcast media … the line between the media and others who wish to comment on political and social issues becomes far more blurred.”Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 352. In defamation cases, the public-figure status of a plaintiff and the public importance of the statement at issue — not the identity of the speaker — provide the First Amendment touchstones.

I think that’s right, not just as a matter of First Amendment principle but also as a matter of history and precedent (as I documented at length in Freedom for the Press as an Industry, or for the Press as a Technology? From the Framing to Today, 160 U. Pa. L. Rev. 459 (2012)). The specific legal issue that the Ninth Circuit was confronting in this passage, by the way, is whether all who speak to the public are equally protected by the Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. rules, which are that"

Source and Full Article

http://volokh.com/2014/01/17/bloggers-media-first-amendment-libel-law-purposes/