In an extraordinary news conference, Mr. Trump denounced CNN as an organ of “anger and hatred” and accused Mr. Zucker directly of “bias.”<br />In an era of hostility and suspicion toward the news media, perhaps no battle is more pitched than that between Mr. Trump and CNN.<br />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<br />that CNN, like other news organizations, offered Mr. Trump too much exposure.<br />Once the down-the-middle nerd of the cable news playground, CNN — under the guidance of Mr. Zucker, a former sports<br />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.<br />“Ask Jeff Zucker how he got his job,” Mr. Trump told the CNN reporter Jim Acosta during the Feb. 16 news conference.<br />Minutes after Mr. Zucker had finished his steak, Mr. Trump was on television screens around<br />the country attacking Mr. Zucker by name from the East Room of the White House.<br />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<br />that the network called retaliatory and that the anchor Jake Tapper, in an on-air monologue, deemed “un-American.”<br />The old CNN may have shrunk from conflict; the new CNN is leaning into it.
