2010 also marked the network's hiring of Sarah Palin, their continued employment of serial misinformer Glenn Beck, and the revelation that Fox execs are deliberately slanting the network's news coverage.

In likely related news, Public Policy Polling released their second annual TV News Trust Poll, which found that, in contrast to a year ago, a plurality of Americans now distrust Fox News.

As they explain in their blog post about the poll's findings, this loss of support comes mostly from moderates and liberals. Trust among conservatives has fallen slightly:

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.

Here's PPP's graph showing the highest net trust for networks to the worst: