Jim Acosta, the CNN correspondent, has stood out among the White House press corps for his impassioned on-air monologues about the importance of the First Amendment. During a tense White House briefing , he challenged the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, to disavow President Trump’s description of journalists as “the enemy of the people.” Sanders declined to do so, saying she had been personally attacked in the media and had faced threats since starting her job. Many liberals praised Acosta for confronting  Sanders, particularly after he had faced vitriol from Trump supporters at a Florida rally . Many conservatives knocked  Acosta as a biased showboat. And some of his rival White House reporters rolled their eyes.

Since last January, when the president-elect shouted him down at a news conference,. Acosta, has been a featured player in the Trump v. Media battle royale. The president, no fan of CNN, has called Acosta “a real beauty” and refused to take his questions last month during a session with reporters in Britain. All that has made Acosta a ripe target for  Trump’s army of adherents. This week, Sean Hannity of Fox News ran a montage of “Jim Acosta Lowlights” and called him “a liberal partisan hack.” In Florida, Acosta, who is regularly escorted to rallies by security personnel, faced hostile Trump fans who interrupted his live shot and shouted “fake news.”

This confrontation happened  when  Acosta, breaking from the usual sober style of White House reporters, framed his question to  Sanders as a moral choice. Sanders deflected  and then mirrored Mr. Acosta’s tone. Sanders, without much evidence, went on to accuse the news media of using “personal attacks without any content other than to incite anger.” She also cited her experience at this year’s White House Correspondents Association dinner, during which the comedian Michelle Wolf mocked Sanders’s “smokey eye” makeup and compared her to “an Uncle Tom” for “white women.”

Since Sanders refused to give direct answer to his question  Acosta promptly walked out. Those watching the exchange on television would have noticed the faces of Acosta’s fellow correspondents, some watching with curiosity and others averting their gaze.