BOZEMAN -- Lawyers for a Montana State University professor who sued the university for gender discrimination have asked the Bozeman Daily Chronicle to turn over all information about its coverage of the lawsuit as well as the names of those who posted or viewed comments about the case on the newspaper's Web site.

The Chronicle this week argued that the state's shield law protects any newspaper employee from being compelled to testify or turn over any information that "was gathered, received or processed in the course of business."

The case involves MSU professor Aleksandra Vinogradov, who claimed she was treated differently and was paid less than her male counterparts in the engineering department. A jury in April ruled against her.

Vinogradov's attorneys, Casey Magan and Russ Waddell, said that before the jury completed its deliberations, at least one juror -- independent from evidence presented during the trial -- came to believe that Vinogradov had lost similar lawsuits. Based on that, the attorneys have asked District Judge Holly Brown to declare a mistrial.

The attorneys say a juror wrote in the newspaper's online comments section: "note that this was the third time this same woman has sued the university for discrimination, and her third loss. Maybe, just maybe, instead of everybody else being conspiring liars hiding a 'big dirty secret,' the problem is really her."

Waddell said in an affidavit that the juror acknowledged writing the post. The juror has since testified he was not the author.

Vinogradov's attorneys also claim MSU played a role in other postings on the Chronicle Web site, including one that referenced the professor's earlier discrimination lawsuit in Calgary. Judge Brown ruled before the trial that information about the lawsuit in Calgary be kept from the jury.

The judge has yet to rule on the subpoena for the newspaper's material or on the request for a new trial.