I strongly agree with your underlying point, but I think you're trying to have a semantic argument over sloppy language. The word "journalist" in lay writing (like that of the Atlantic article, and mine as well) is too vague to be picked apart like this. And in fact the appeals court decision gives some credence to the common bloggers' refrain that "we're all journalists now".

Using more precise terms, you might say that the court did not decide that Crystal Cox is a member of the institutional media. If this is your actual assertion then you needn't have bothered, because we can read it for ourselves in the opinion:

We therefore hold that the Gertz negligence requirement for private defamation actions is not limited to cases with institutional media defendants.

If we're not bound by the traditional but increasingly outdated definition of the word "journalist", then I think you and I are saying the same thing. Let me illustrate with another bit of pedantry (on the part of both of us):

> "Actually, she claimed that she can't be held liable because the alleged victims were public figures"

Yes, but that only works if she qualifies for first amendment protections commonly (and now perhaps erroneously) understood to belong to institutional journalists. Which she now does. So what do we call her? A non-institutional journalist? A blogger? Tomato? Tomahto?