I am not clear why the right to peaceably assemble has anything to do with this. The First Amendment specifically prohibits abridgement of "freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble", so clearly it was written assuming the rights of free speech, assembly, and the press were distinct. I was surprised at Thomas's example too; I'm quite certain that the idea of "the press" would have included corporations even in the eighteenth century and therefore it was always intended that news corporations and individuals were to be protected, quite apart from the issue of whether corporations are persons. His claim that the NYT's freedom of the press would somehow be statutory instead of Constitutional seems very weak.