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This had to be one of the most surreal and uncomfortable interviews in the history of the Sunday news shows.

Politico's Dylan Byers and NPR’s David Folkenflik took over the interviewing reins from Howard Kurtz on Reliable Sources to ask for his explanation and contrition over being fired by The Daily Beast this week.

They were not gentle to Kurtz, variously characterizing him as insensitive, slow to respond to corrections, and playing across the boundaries of journalistic ethics more times than a media journalist tasked to look at how the media does their jobs should do. Clearly feeling that more than his job was on the line, his reputation in tatters, Kurtz took his penance and apologized several times.

Kurtz's dismissal stemmed from his reporting on pro basketball player Jason Collins coming out this week. Kurtz initially insisted that Collins hadn't been forthcoming, and lied about having been engaged to a woman at one point in his life.

Mr. Kurtz was embroiled in a controversy over a blog post he wrote about the basketball player Jason Collins. Mr. Collins co-wrote a Sports Illustrated article that was published on Monday in which he acknowledged that he was gay. In a post this week, Mr. Kurtz criticized Mr. Collins for not admitting in the article that he had once been engaged to be married.

Mr. Collins, however, had written about his engagement to a woman. The error made it appear as if Mr. Kurtz had not read the material, and he became the target of gleeful bashing on Twitter. The Daily Beast retracted the post on Thursday.

When the Twitterverse pointed out to Kurtz that Collins had been open about being in a heterosexual relationship (why this matters has yet to be explained to me), Kurtz didn't immediately retract his post, but claimed that Collins had "downplayed" the engagement. I'm not sure how much more Collins needed to highlight it than writing this:

When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her. I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I always knew it was blue.

But clearly, it satisfied everyone but Howard Kurtz. So after much scorn, both on Twitter and in the comments, the Daily Beast retracted the post fully and Executive Editor Tina Brown issued a Twitter statement that Kurtz and the Beast had mutually parted ways. It wasn't the only reason the Daily Beast wanted to be rid of Kurtz--reportedly, in addition to your basic Journalism 101 errors, they were troubled by the amount of time he spent promoting another site--The Daily Download--of which he was a freelance contributer--than the site that actually employed him.

Despite having his own show on CNN, Kurtz has dedicated much of his recent time to a new venture: a website called “The Daily Download,” where he regularly appears in video segments with the site’s founder and editor Lauren Ashburn. That preoccupation seems to have taken a toll on Kurtz’s attention span and focus. [..]

The decision to add “The Daily Download” to this list of responsibilities has confounded some of Kurtz’s viewers.

”What would I go to this site for? As another place Howard Kurtz does his able thing on the week’s media news? Okay, but why does he need that? And why do we? He’s got the Daily Beast and CNN: plenty of platform,” Jay Rosen, the New York University journalism professor, wrote in an email to POLITICO. “Daily Download resists understanding.”

Kurtz has written some incredibly sloppy posts in the last few years, which a self-professed media watchdog probably ought to have enough ethics and skills to avoid. It's now up to CNN if they still want to continue to prop up the hackery. Reportedly, his show is "under review" by CNN.

The week actually got off to a great start! I spent last weekend at the amazing Tortuga Music Festival here in South Florida, benefiting the Rock the Ocean Foundation, and was feeling great for a Monday.

Then all hell broke loose in Boston.

As bad as the actual explosion of two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon was, the lies and insanity that were presented as “news” made it even more disgusting. The worst perpetrator had to be the Rupert Murdoch-owned NY Post, Wall Street Journal and Fox “News” Channel:

The “Saudi National” was never officially a “suspect” nor was he arrested, though some “news” organizations and pundits sure made it sound that way. And many were quick to take the information they put out to blame “the Muslims”.

The fact that he was even questioned and considered a “person of interest” is also reprehensible. Read this account of what was done to this young man in this account, “The Saudi Marathon Man” by Amy Davison at The New Yorker.

But the kicker came Thursday morning, in the form of the front page New York’s biggest piece of trash, the NY Post:

As Deadspin reported, those two kids pictured are NOT the suspects!

The pair show up in multiple photos of the finish line. They carry large bags. They are dark-skinned. This was enough for internet sleuths to peg them as suspicious…

(The photo on the paper’s cover is a cropped and zoomed-in version of the one taken by Ben Levine, which appeared on Deadspin on Tuesday.)

But maybe there was a reason for them to be at the marathon, wearing track jackets and carrying bags: they’re runners. The kid in the blue jacket is a middle-distance runner at Revere High School. Last week he ran the two-mile in 11:20.

Yesterday he caught wind that his name and social media profiles were being circulated online, and he did what any teenager would do: He panicked. He made his Facebook timeline private, and in one message now no longer visible, he announced he was going to clear his name.

"Going to the court rightnow!! Shit is real. But u will see guys I’m did not do anything"

Not to be outdone, CNN decided to get in on the journalistic malpractice action:

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Chris Hayes' opening segment on All In was superb. He very clearly and precisely said what we all thought on Wednesday when CNN claimed a suspect had been arrested in Boston and that suspect was 'dark-skinned.'

Since 9-11, CNN has really changed, and not for the better. When I worked there, they were far more concerned with being right over being first. But that standard has been shattered, along with any pretense of objectivity. Hayes gives it a name:

This wasn't just some abstraction happening on cable news that no one was paying attention to, and I understand people make mistakes, but the bungling of the story today mattered. This is video outside the courthouse in Boston after all that frenzied, inaccurate reporting this afternoon. A crowd has gathered. To be sure, a lot of these people are reporters and media folks, but they are people who show up in hopes of seeing a suspect brought in.

Among them were likely anguished, angry people whose city has just been through a terrible trauma who wanted to see with their own eyes someone suspected of being responsible for it, a suspect who would not even exist yet but were told by the news was already in custody. And the one thing people knew about the suspect, the only thing they thought they knew for sure, thanks to CNN's reporting was the following descriptor:

It was described to me as a dark-skinned male individual.

I was told by a source that was a law enforcement official that this was a dark-skinned male. Source had been briefed on the investigation, I should say, that the suspect was a dark-skinned male.

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God forbid conservatives should actually be held accountable for their lies. Michele Bachmann, who has a history of saying the most ridiculous, outrageous things about President Obama and who holds herself up as a high and mighty holy roller, has some real problems with the truth.

When CNN confronts her, she dodges and feints and ultimately runs. In the process, she looks like the liar and fool she is. Via Mediaite

For Tuesday night’s “Keeping Them Honest” segment, CNN host Anderson Cooper turned to Dana Bash‘s encounter with Rep. Michele Bachmann who, asked about comments she made about President Obama enjoying a lavish lifestyle at the taxpayer’s expense, repeatedly dodged the questions and “literally raced away.” Bash was “speechless.”

“A new book is out talking about the perks and the excess of the $1.4-billion-a-year presidency that we’re paying for,” Bachmann said in the speech. “And this is a lifestyle that is one of excess.” She added:

“Now we find out that there are five chefs on Air Force One. There are two projectionists who operate the White House movie theater. They regularly sleep at the White House in order to be readily available in case the first family wants a really, really late show.”

Bash sought to confront her about those comments — which got four Pinocchios from theWashington Post — and found herself chasing after the congresswoman. “She literally raced away from our Dana Bash,” Cooper remarked.

Gee, I wonder why. It's one thing to drop BS on stupid CPAC attendees, and quite another to actually have to answer for it. The day she is booted from Congress will be a day of celebration for me. She's just clinging to Sarah Palin's heels for the Worst Conservative Woman ever.

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Here (above) is the C&L video that rocked CNN's world and caused all the ruckus last Sunday. Candy Crowley, and especially Poppy Harlow are shocked -- SHOCKED -- that anyone would call them rape apologists because of the tone of their reporting. That tells me they're tone-deaf.

Via The Wrap:

Meanwhile two insiders at CNN exclusively told TheWrap that the controversy had hit reporter Poppy Harlow, covering the events in Steubenville, particularly hard.

“Poppy is taking this extremely personally as a woman,” said one executive. “She’s outraged that someone would think she’d do such a thing” as slant her coverage toward rapists. “It’s gotten so out of control.”

The outrage stemmed from Harlow standing outside the courtroom after the verdicts were read on Sunday, visibly moved by watching the young men collapse at the news of conviction. “I’ve never experienced anything like it,” she said on the air. “It’s incredibly emotional, even for an outsider like me. These two young men, with promising futures, star football players, A students, literally watched as their lives fell apart.”

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Michael Moore, who was one of the few public figures willing to take the heat for protesting the Iraq invasion, is doing his best to help people remember exactly why. Calling Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal (as he certainly was) is guaranteed to make at least some people pay attention:

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore bitterly complained Tuesday night that no major Bush administration figure faced serious consequences for the invasion of Iraq.

On the tenth anniversary of the war, Moore told CNN’s Piers Morgan that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was a “war criminal as far as I’m concerned.”

Moore has long maintained the Bush administration manipulated intelligence reports to make a case for war. The Bush administration claimed Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction and seeking to create a nuclear bomb, but following the invasion of the country no evidence of the weapons were found.

“I don’t understand why he, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz are still walking the streets,” Moore continued. “The whole way they are trying to revise history now is by saying, ‘Well, it was a mistake,’ or, ‘We were given bad information.’”

He doubted police would show him any leniency if he provided them with false information against one of his political targets, such as Goldman Sachs. “I think I would be arrested,” Moore remarked.

He warned the lack of repercussions against top Bush administration officials set a bad precedent for future presidents.

“The fact that no one has paid for this criminal act — why would an American, such as George W. Bush, send thousands of Americans off to their deaths? For what reason? And why doesn’t he have to answer for that?”

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Shortly after the guilty verdict in the Steubenville rape case was announced, Candy Crowley took to the airwaves to report it and connect with their reporter on the ground for more details. Her lead-in to the remote shot was shameful.

Crowley was filled with sadness for two young men who took advantage of a drunk and possibly drugged young girl because the judge actually held them accountable for what they did. Instead of wondering aloud why they weren't tried as adults, she was instead very concerned that now they would have to register for the rest of their lives as sex offenders.

They are sex offenders. And now they're convicted sex offenders. If Crowley doubts the lightness of their sentence in the overall larger picture, consider the statement this morning from Attorney General Mike DeWine, via The Atlantic Wire

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, saying that "this community needs assurance that no stone has been left unturned in our search for the truth," announced at a press briefing at Jefferson County Juvenile Court "that we cannot bring finality to this matter without the convening of a grand jury," which he said would convene on or around April 15. "I anticipate numerous witnesses will be called. The grand jury, quite frankly, could meet for a number of days," DeWine said, adding that "indictments could be returned and additional charges could be filed." He mentioned failure to report a felony, tampering with evidence, and "others" as possible charges. He added that the boys who received immunity were likely to retain that right.

DeWine gave a sense of scale to his office's investigation: 13 cellphones, 396,270 text messages, 308,586 photos, 940 video clips, 3,188 phone calls, 16,422 cellphone contacts. And that was just the cyber-crimes division, which prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter said was brought in on the request of attorneys "after Anonymous hit," referring to the hackers who brought social-media attention to the case and "put enormous pressure" on the victim. DeWine also said the "appalling" case involved closed to 60 interviews, but that 16 people refused to talk to his investigators, and that his office was seeking finality in continuing court proceedings in the matter. "Most of the 16 are underage," DeWine said.

"This is not a happy time for anyone. No one can take any pleasure in this. Every rape is a tragedy. This is a tragedy," DeWine said, moving on to castigate rape culture in general. "This happens every Friday night," DeWine said. "We shouldn't tolerate it anymore as a country."

Nor should we shed any crocodile tears for these rapists, Candy.

CNN is doing a series of in-depth reports relating to Steve Brill's article on the incredibly crazy cost of health care. This family racked up huge medical bills, mostly because he was too young for Medicare. Had Medicare been responsible for his coverage, the bills would have been less than a tenth of the total.

The video speaks for itself...I'll just step back and let you watch it.

The best journalist on CNN is losing her show -- and will be replaced by Erin freakin' Burnett.

We can't have actual journalism on CNN. The rest of them might get ideas:

NEW YORK — CNN's Soledad O'Brien won't immediately be leaving CNN even though her job as morning show host is ending.

New CNN boss Jeff Zucker said Thursday that he has reached a deal to help fund a production company for O'Brien, who will be making three documentaries for CNN and host this year's "Black in America" documentary. Zucker is developing a new morning show around Chris Cuomo. He is expected to be teamed with Erin Burnett.

Ah yes, Erin Burnett. Wall Street's sweetheart!

O'Brien said the deal will let her do what she wants to do most, confronting difficult topics and telling underreported stories. She'll also have the opportunity to own her work and the production company is able to sell material to outlets other than CNN.

Her new company, Starfish Media Group, will also develop theatrical and scripted television projects.

As Cenk points out, this is the same kind of deal that was offered to Anne Curry -- who has since been invisible.

"Most trusted name in news?" Hardly. Let CNN know what you think of them cleansing their airways of actual journalism. Click here! You can also call 404.827.1500.

David Schuster talks about his days working at Fox.

Public Policy Polling’s 4th annual poll about television news shows that public trust for Fox News has hit a record low. But in case you had any doubt that the “fair and balanced” network is entwined with the GOP, trust for Fox is so strong among Republicans that their partisan support makes it the most trusted news network, too.

PPP explains:

Just like its actual ratings, Fox News has hit a record low in the four years that we've been doing this poll. 41% of voters trust it to 46% who do not. To put those numbers into some perspective the first time we did this poll, in 2010, 49% of voters trusted it to 37% who did not. Fox has maintained most of its credibility with Republicans, dropping just from 74/15 to 70/15 over that period of time. But it's been losing what standing it had with Democrats (from 30/52 to 22/66) and independents (from 41/44 to 32/56).

We find once again this year that Democrats trust everything except Fox, and Republicans don't trust anything other than Fox. …When it comes to asking Americans which single outlet they trust the most and least out of the ones we polled on, Fox News once again wins both honors. 34% say it's the one they trust the most, compared to 13% for PBS, 12% for CNN, 11% for ABC, 8% for MSNBC, 6% for CBS, and 5% each for Comedy Central and NBC. Fox News is the choice of 67% of Republicans, while Democrats basically split their allegiances four ways between ABC and CNN, both at 17%, and MSNBC and PBS, both at 16%.

So while Roger Ailes and his minions still pretend to lack a partisan agenda, American news consumers know better. It’s also heartening to know that such stunts as pretending there’s journalistic value in questioning President Obama’s citizenship, denying climate change, and predicting a landslide win for Mitt Romney don’t sit so well with most of us.

By the way, the real winner was PBS. It was the only outlet trusted by a majority of respondents.