(CHATSWORTH, CA) -- a crucial ruling is expected this week from a federal judge hearing a case brought by porn mogul Larry Flynt challenging the Pentagon's refusal to allow reporters to cover wars from actual battlefields.

The case (Larry Flynt and LFP Publications vs. Donald Rumsfeld) is before Judge Paul Friedman in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Friedman heard arguments last week on a Pentagon motion to dismiss the case and is expected to rule this week.

Adult Video News, the leading authority on the adult industry, says Flynt's challenge is likely to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court and "could lead to one of the most important First Amendment cases in decades."

"And if that happens," according to AVN senior editor Mark Kernes, "The people who will likely make the most use of this new-found right will include CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS and NBC... And to a lesser extent, probably even Larry Flynt." Kernes wrote extensively about the case in an essay that appears on the AVN Website. [See link below]

Paul J. Cambria, the attorney retained by Flynt to bring the case, told AVN: "It is very rare when you can do something in the First Amendment area that has never been done before and that would be to have the Court declare that there's a right of access to the battlefields." He noted that historically the media has covered battlefield combat first hand and it was not until the first Bush administration that the press has been excluded beginning with the Gulf War.

Cambria told AVN: "We argued that motion in front of the U.S. District Court in D.C., and telling the judge that the executive branch has basically taken the position that unlike the other two branches of government, it's immune from the sunshine of the media. We certainly have an institutional need for the American public to know about war and battles and politics. I think the media probably played a huge role in the end of the Vietnam war, as it rallied a number of congressmen and so on, which it reported on the atrocities such as the My Lai massacre. Such reporting serves a huge function and purpose."

About AVN:
Adult Video News is the leading independent authority in adult entertainment. The company publishes the monthly magazines AVN and AVN Online along with an industry newsletter, operates the leading adult industry trade shows Adult Entertainment Expo and Internext, provides content through the Websites AVN.com, AVNInsider.com and AVNLive.com and hosts the annual AVN Awards ceremony every January in Las Vegas. AVN is based in Chatsworth, California. For more information visit AVN.com.

Contact:
Patti Rogers:
212-338-0050
Or PR@AVN.com