The Breitbart News reports that a federal judge has accused Laurence Silberman, The New York Times and The Washington Post of being alarmingly biased against Republicans.
Judge Laurence Silberman accused The New York Times and The Washington Post of being “Democratic broadsheets” in a dissenting opinion Friday, the report said.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Federal appeals judge Laurence Silberman accused The New York Times and The Washington Post, and to some extent The Wall Street Journal, of being mouthpieces of “pretty egregious” bias against the Republican Party in a written opinion Friday.
The orientation of these three newspapers is emulated by the Associated Press and most of the nation’s major newspapers (such as the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald and Boston Globe),” he said in the opinion piece.” Almost all of television (network and cable) is a Democratic Party loudspeaker. Even the government-backed National Public Radio followed suit.”
In addition, Judge Silberman wrote that Silicon Valley “also has a tremendous impact on the dissemination of news” and “it filters the delivery of news in the same way that it favors the Democrats.” He called the opinion pages of Fox News, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal “notable exceptions to the ideological control of the Democratic Party,” but acknowledged that “some commentators at Fox are as far to the right as commentators and reporters in the mainstream media are to the left.
Silberman said, “It’s well known that viewpoint discrimination induces a specter – that the government may effectively push certain ideas or views from the marketplace.” But ideological homogeneity in the media – or in the channels of information dissemination – has the potential to suppress certain ideas from the public consciousness just as surely as the government restricts access to information.”
Silberman adds, “It should be borne in mind that the first step taken by any potentially authoritarian or dictatorial regime is to gain control over communications, and especially over the transmission of news.”” It is therefore fair to conclude that one-party control of the press and media is a threat to a viable democracy and that it may even give rise to counteracting extremism.”
The justices said the Supreme Court should overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, a 1964 case that held that when a media outlet discusses a public figure, it is liable under state libel laws only if the plaintiff can prove “actual malice,” which the court defined as when the speaker either knew the statement was false or made it with “reckless disregard for the truth. The court defined it as the speaker either knew the statement was false or made it with “reckless disregard for the truth.
Silberman concluded, “The First Amendment guarantees a free press to promote a vibrant trade in ideas, but a biased press can distort the marketplace.” And when the media has proven its willingness to be so distorted, it is a grave mistake to abide by unreasonable legal rules that only enhance the power of the press.”
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