Broadly speaking, journalists at major outlets are much more interested in responding to conservative criticism than liberal critiques.
This, a comedian directing mean jokes at a Trump spokesperson requires an immediate response. But the comedian's suggestion that the press' coverage of Trump is somehow lacking can be safely ignored.
Adopting the press as an explicit enemy gives conservatives a lot of tactical flexibility and puts journalists in a tough spot.
The choice tends to be either carry water for the conservative argument, or get attacked as biased libs for not doing that.
And a lot of journalists, by training and incentive structure, are deeply uncomfortable being branded that way, even when the criticism is in obvious bad faith.
The progressive media critiques, from left media and politicians in particular, are substantively less harsh, and can be safely ignored.
I don't have a good solution here - there's an obvious asymmetry but the broader cost to mimicking conservative behavior is quite dangerous.
As messages go, "journalism is good and important but there are some structural flaws that do not favor the truth" is a tougher sell than "destroy the lying fake news media."
It's telling that some journalists think that an important response at a time when the president has successfully convinced his supporters that they can't be trusted is to ensure his spokesperson doesn't suffer mean jokes about how she lies.
If you think that rolling over to the criticism will somehow make it stop, I dunno what to tell you.
Twenty-two years ago, an adviser to three Republican presidents started a cable news network with the near-explicit goal of undermining the rest of the press for financial and political gain.
Every night, the host of its most-watched program, who is also a sometime adviser to the president, explains that the destroy Trump fake news media is deliberately lying to the public to take down the president.
Being nice to the president's spokesperson is not going to fix things, folks.
PS: This from Facebook suggests that they're going to fall into all the same traps. axios.com/scoop-facebook… 
The Diamond and Silk hearing has Facebook terrified and eager to do whatever they can to make the criticism stop. This will embolden the bad faith critics, creating a beneficial feedback loop for conservatives.
