A federal appeals judge accused the media of being a “trumpet” for the Democratic Party in a scathing dissenting opinion handed down Friday.
The NY Post reports Washington, DC, Senior Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman, 85, called on his fellow judges to overturn a Supreme Court landmark decision protecting the press, complaining that conservatives are oppressed by liberal outlets, academia and tech companies that combine to create “a frighteningly orthodox media culture.”
The judge was countering his colleagues’ decision to toss a libel suit filed by two former Liberian officials against human rights group Global Witness.
The ex-officials had sued over a report by a human rights group called Global Witness that they said implied they had accepted bribes from an oil company.
Silberman complained in his lone, dissenting opinion about the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision requiring libel plaintiffs prove “actual malice,” and called on the Supreme Court to revisit the landmark ruling.
The Reagan appointee said increasing the power of the media is “so dangerous,” “because we are very close to one-party control of these institutions.”
“Two of the three most influential papers (at least historically), The New York Times and The Washington Post, are virtually Democratic Party broadsheets,” Silberman claimed.
He also griped that the news section of The Wall Street Journal and most television outlets also skew to the left.
Silberman said a “one-party control of the press” poses a threat to a “viable democracy.”
He cited Fox News, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal opinion and editorial pages as one of the “few notable exceptions to Democratic Party ideological control.”
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