Posted by Eugene Volokh:
The First Amendment and the Media/Nonmedia Distinction:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_09_20-2009_09_26.shtml#1253830534
I was also pleased by this footnote from [1]the Fourth Circuit's free
speech / funeral picketing decision:
Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has specifically addressed
the question of whether the constitutional protections afforded to
statements not provably false should apply with equal force to both
media and nonmedia defendants. The Second and Eighth Circuits,
however, have rejected any media/nonmedia distinction. Like those
two circuits, we believe that the First Amendment protects nonmedia
speech on matters of public concern that does not contain provably
false factual assertions. Any effort to justify a media/nonmedia
distinction rests on unstable ground, given the difficulty of
defining with precision who belongs to the "media."
Sounds exactly right to me.
References
1. http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/081026.P.pdf
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