Media critic David Zurawik criticized Fox News for its dishonest attempt to portray itself as a nonpartisan media outlet. Zurawik pointed to Fox's defense of Mitt Romney's false claim that Jeep was moving production to China, and Fox CEO Roger Ailes' attempt to convince Gen. David Petraeus to run for president as evidence of the network's political activism.

In a column on the media-based website Daily Download, Zurawik pointed out that the network's attempt to defend Romney from criticism of his claim that Jeep was shipping jobs to China during the presidential campaign “cuts to the heart of the lie Fox News tries to sell about its news operation being as journalistically sound and non-idealogically driven as anything on the networks or CNN”:

No, the news about Fox News that mattered Wednesday was connected to PolitiFact naming the Mitt Romney campaign ad that said Jeep was going to move production and ship jobs to China “Lie of the Year.” Lie of the year.

And why that matters in any discussion of Fox is that the Murdoch channel “fact checked” the ad during the campaign and vouched for its essential accuracy -- not once but twice. And furthermore, Fox did it in one instance with Jim Angle, who is part of the news operation -- not the host of an evening show -- doing the vouching. The channel's website describes Angle as “chief national correspondent.”

That cuts to the heart of the lie Fox News tries to sell about its news operation being as journalistically sound and non-ideologically driven as anything on the networks or CNN. Sure, Fox executives have said to me, the prime-time shows have opinion in them - just like opinion pages in a newspaper. But not our news programs and the reports by our correspondents.

Except, I guess, when it's an election year, and things are going badly for the Republican candidate. Then, you use your chief national correspondent to vouch for the accuracy of the ad that is the “Lie of the Year.”

Zurawik also pointed to recent reports that Ailes attempted to convince Petraeus to run for president as further evidence of Fox's political activism. Although Ailes reportedly dismissed the comments as a joke, Zurawik noted “there is nothing funny about a report by one of the nation's finest journalists that shows Fox trying to influence and corrupt the American political system.”