The CNN chief Jeff Zucker gave his troops unexpected orders the day after President Trump snatched the press credential away from Jim Acosta, one of the network’s White House correspondents.

The temptation to play it big was strong. Here was a CNN star in the middle of the action, and television news is nothing if not self-promotional. But at the regular morning meeting on Thursday, Mr. Zucker told his producers to stand down.

This time, CNN would not be led by the nose into giving significant airtime to another Trump attack on the news media, especially when Democrats were preparing to take over the House and Jeff Sessions was being forced out of the attorney general’s office.

It was a first step toward a revised approach in dealing with the president’s anti-media antics, which reached a new level last week when Mr. Trump went beyond mere rhetoric by taking away Mr. Acosta’s White House press pass and threatening to do the same for anyone else who failed to show “respect.”