The New York Times didn't exercise free speech rights in publishing the Pentagon Papers. The First Amendment protects five specific rights (speech, press, religion, assembly, petition), along with protecting against an establishment of religion. The Times was using its press rights under the First Amendment.<p>There are different lines of jurisprudence in First Amendment law depending upon the right implicated. A press case is going to be decided upon a different line of cases than a free speech case.<p>The corporate or non-corporate form is irrelevant. It's looking to the substance. There's a difference between freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Freedom of the press protects the ability to report the news. It's rooted in the the British government prosecuting those publishing stories critical of the government as seditious libel, giving rise to the maxim, "the greater the truth, the greater the libel."<p>Speech, in contrast, is the speaking of opinion. The Times did not do this in publishing the Pentagon Papers. There is a difference between a newspaper with corporate form publishing the news and a corporation such as ExxonMobil or Google effectively advocating for a specific candidate.