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The ongoing defamation case by a Storey County commissioner against Sam Toll and his online publication The Storey Teller took another turn in Toll’s favor last month when a district judge ruled that Toll was a reporter and The Storey Teller was “the functional equivalent of a traditional printed newspaper.”
The ruling by Judge James Wilson follows a December decision from the Nevada Supreme Court that had upheld the status of news bloggers under the state’s shield law (NRS 49.275), which protects journalists and their sources. Nevada’s law is generally considered one of the strongest in the United States, but it specifically cites only traditional media outlets such as newspapers, TV and radio.
The Supreme Court applied the same standard to digital media and sent the lawsuit by Lance Gilman back to Wilson for a determination of whether The Storey Teller qualified.
In his March 19 order, Wilson wrote: “Because (1) Toll is a reporter; (2) he regularly and consistently published current-event articles; (3) the articles on his blog provided information regarding events-news; (4) Toll obtained, gathered, received, procured and processed information, including the information from unnamed sources, in his capacity as a reporter; (5) he wrote the articles for communication to the public; and (6) he did communicate the articles to the public by publishing them on his blog; the court finds and concludes Toll’s blog was the functional equivalent of a traditional newspaper and therefore is a newspaper.”
You can read Toll’s reaction — “It’s the bottom of the 9th” — at The Storey Teller.