Former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson is augmenting her campaign to paint herself as a victim of liberal media bias with conspiratorial and false attacks on Media Matters.

Earlier this year Attkisson, who had been celebrated by conservative activists for her often shoddy reporting on the Obama administration, ended her two-decade career at CBS News. She has since made numerous media appearances, often on Fox News, claiming that her reporting had been curtailed by CBS managers who opposed critical reporting on the administration. As Media Matters noted last week, Attkisson has provided little to no evidence to support her broad claims that politics, rather than newsworthiness, was keeping her stories off CBS' air.

Attkisson responded during an April 20 appearance on CNN's Reliable Sources. After Attkisson claimed that there is a “campaign by those who really want to controversialize the reporting I do,” host Brian Stelter asked, "Media Matters has been campaigning against you and saying you've been inaccurate in your reporting, is that what they're doing? They're just trying to controversialize the issue?" Attkisson responded that she had been “targeted” by Media Matters and hinted at a motive, saying, “I don't know if someone paid them to do it or they just took it on their own.” After Stelter asked her whether she really believed Media Matters had been paid to target her, she responded, “Perhaps, sure. I think that's what some of these groups do, absolutely.”  

Attkisson's claims quickly found a ready audience on Fox News.

But Attkisson's claims are false. Media Matters has never taken contributions to target her or any other reporter. We have published research on her reports on green energy and Obamacare, among other topics, when those reports have been inaccurate or misleading -- the same standard to which we hold any other reporter.

Attkisson decided to float this conspiracy theory without any evidence during an appearance on a news program, suggesting that she doesn't believe she needs to prove her contentions before bringing them to a national audience. If that was the reporting standard she sought to uphold at CBS News, it's no wonder that her managers were unwilling to let her promote half-baked conspiracies on their airwaves.

UPDATE: In an April 21 email to the former CBS reporter, Media Matters chairman David Brock denied Attkisson's claims and challenged her to produce evidence that Media Matters was paid to target her or publicly apologize for her statements. “Professional journalists don't go on national television and make up allegations, even against their critics,” he wrote. From the email:

We have never taken contributions to target you or any other reporter. And it it completely unfathomable to me why you decided to make this serious charge -- which has attracted wide media attention -- without a shred of evidence to back you up.

Professional journalists don't go on national television and make up allegations, even against their critics. If you have such evidence to show that Media Matters was paid to target you, I ask that you publicly release it. If you have no evidence to back up your charge, I ask that you publicly apologize and correct your false claims against us.