CNN’s Coverage of Trump Was Biased, Presidential Candidates’ Aides Say

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Jeffrey A. Zucker, CNN’s president, is accustomed to complaints about his network going easy on Donald J. Trump: providing extensive coverage of his rallies, letting him phone in for interviews and hiring his former campaign manager as an analyst.

Rarely, however, does Mr. Zucker — or any television news executive, for that matter — face the kind of A-list revolt that brewed here Wednesday evening.

In extraordinary exchanges, aides to Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush openly accused Mr. Zucker of enabling Mr. Trump and undermining their candidates in the Republican primary, heckling from their seats as Mr. Zucker spoke on a panel in a hotel ballroom.

“You showed hours upon hours of unfiltered, unscrutinized coverage of Trump!” shouted Todd Harris, a top adviser for Mr. Rubio. A Washington Post reporter, Karen Tumulty, prompted applause when she pressed Mr. Zucker on why he allowed Trump surrogates to spread falsehoods on his network.

It was a visceral airing of grievances before an audience of the country’s leading political operatives and journalists, gathered for what is typically a staid postelection conference at Harvard. And it captured CNN’s lightning-rod position in the debate over the role of the media in Mr. Trump’s rise and, now, his looming presidency.

Since Election Day, Mr. Trump has singled out CNN for criticism, posting on Twitter that the network had “total (100%) support of Hillary Clinton” and chastising Mr. Zucker during a private meeting with television executives at Trump Tower. Yet media commentators have accused CNN of giving preferential treatment to Mr. Trump to lift ratings. The network is on track this year to collect $1 billion in profit.