TV News LIES

On the afternoon of January 6, Frances Fox Piven, a distinguished professor, legendary activist, writer and longtime contributor to this magazine, received an e-mail from an unknown correspondent. There was no text, just a subject line that read: DIE YOU CUNT.

It was not the first piece of hateful e-mail Piven had gotten, nor would it be the last. One writer told her to "go back to Canada you dumb bitch"; another ended with this wish: "may cancer find you soon."

A year ago a plurality of Americans said they trusted Fox News. Now a plurality of them don't. Conservatives haven't moved all that much- 75% said they trusted it last year and 72% still do this time around.But moderates and liberals have both had a strong increase in their level of distrust for the network- a 12 point gain from 48% to 60% for moderates and a 16 point gain from 66% to 82% for liberals.

Voters between left and center tend to be more trusting of the media across the board, which is why a fair number of them were still rating Fox favorably even a year ago at this time. But it looks like with a lot of those folks it has finally crossed the line to being too political to trust.

A female reporter for the Qatar-based news channel was reportedly asked to remove articles of clothing, including her bra, while entering a Foreign Press Association event. The Foreign Press Association in Israel is threatening to boycott briefings held by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if security procedures are not changed immediately.

"In a democratic country, security services are not permitted to do as they please," the association said in a open statement. "For a government trying to usher in a new era of relations with the foreign media, this is a peculiar way to begin."

Ailes' comments appeared in a conversation with Russell Simmons that was published on Simmons' website, Global Grind. He said that any attempts to connect Fox News or the Tea Party to the shooting were "bullshit," and that "both sides" were responsible for extreme rhetoric.

"I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually," Ailes said. You don't have to do it with bombast. I hope the other side does that."

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A self-described humorist named a liberal cable news host a "target" on her blog the day after he denounced incendiary political rhetoric in response to an Arizona shooting that claimed the lives of six people, including a federal judge, a congressperson's aide, and a child.

Andrea Rouda's post entitled “Speaking of Target Practice” listed several historical figures who were murdered "by a crazy person" before naming MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, whom she referred to as "the Devil."

Not so long ago, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could count on American journalists to support his campaign to publish secret documents that banks and governments didn't want the world to see.

But just three years after a major court confrontation that saw many of America's most important journalism organizations file briefs on WikiLeaks' behalf, much of the U.S. journalistic community has shunned Assange — even as reporters write scores, if not hundreds, of stories based on WikiLeaks' trove of leaked State Department cables.