citations omitted]. Milkovich and Bums thus provide the necessary framework to determine if a statement is protected. This framework involves two inquiries. The first inquiry is whether the statement is “sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false.” Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 21[, 110 S.Ct. 2695]. The second inquiry is whether reasonable people would conclude that the assertion is one of fact. Id. The factors relevant to the second inquiry are: (1) how the assertion is phrased; (2) the context of the entire statement; and (3) the circumstances surrounding the assertion, including the medium through which the information is disseminated and the audience to whom the statement is directed. Burns, 659 P.2d at 1360; see Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20[, 110 S.Ct. 2695] (<HOLDING>); Falwell, 485 U.S. at 50[, 108 S.Ct. 876]
holding that a prior inconsistent statement was admissible and the defendant failed to ask for a limiting instruction that the jury could not use the statement as substantive evidence holding that loose figurative or hyperbolic language may indicate that the statement could not reasonably be interpreted as a statement of fact holding that anonymous statement was admissible as a statement by a partys agent under rule 801d2d and noting that a district court should be presented with sufficient evidence to conclude that the person who is alleged to have made the damaging statement is in fact a party or an agent of that party holding that the statement i have a gun is a threat of death because a reasonable teller upon hearing the statement normally and reasonably would fear that his or her life is in danger holding that trial counsel was not ineffective when he failed to introduce defendants prior consistent statement statement was not admissible because it was made after defendant had been arrested clearly not a time when the effect of the statement could not have been foreseen