A federal appeals court judge in Washington, D.C. has penned a scathing dissent accusing the media of being a 'trumpet' for the Democratic Party, while calling on his colleagues to overturn a Supreme Court landmark decision protecting the press.
Senior Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman lamented that conservatives are being oppressed by overwhelmingly liberal news media, academia and tech companies creating 'a frighteningly orthodox media culture.'
The judge responded to a decision on Friday to toss a libel suit filed by two former Liberian officials against human rights group Global Witness, over a report implying they had accepted bribes from an oil company.
Silberman, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1985, was the only judge to dissent in the case, which found the plaintiffs could not prove 'actual malice', under New York Times v. Sullivan 1964.
The 85-year-old judge criticized the legal precedent in his dissent for increasing the power of the media, something he described as 'so dangerous', 'because we are very close to one-party control of these institutions.'
He then went on to launch an attack on media organizations as well as Silicon Valley, which he claims is responsible for the increasingly anti-conservative bias in the news.
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