In an extraordinary news conference, Mr. Trump denounced CNN as an organ of “anger and hatred” and accused Mr. Zucker directly of “bias.”

In an extraordinary news conference, Mr. Trump denounced CNN as an organ of “anger and hatred” and accused Mr. Zucker directly of “bias.”
In an era of hostility and suspicion toward the news media, perhaps no battle is more pitched than that between Mr. Trump and CNN.
Since the election, Mr. Zucker has defended his programming choices and pledged to “hold the new administration’s feet to the fire,” although he conceded
that CNN, like other news organizations, offered Mr. Trump too much exposure.
Once the down-the-middle nerd of the cable news playground, CNN — under the guidance of Mr. Zucker, a former sports
and morning show producer with a yen for flood-the-zone programming — is now an elbows-out player in national politics, vociferously pledging to hold a truth-averse White House to account.
“Ask Jeff Zucker how he got his job,” Mr. Trump told the CNN reporter Jim Acosta during the Feb. 16 news conference.
Minutes after Mr. Zucker had finished his steak, Mr. Trump was on television screens around
the country attacking Mr. Zucker by name from the East Room of the White House.
Later, CNN’s White House reporter was one of several journalists barred from attending a briefing with Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Sean M. Spicer, a move
that the network called retaliatory and that the anchor Jake Tapper, in an on-air monologue, deemed “un-American.”
The old CNN may have shrunk from conflict; the new CNN is leaning into it.