Brian Karem, the executive editor of the Sentinel newspapers in Washington DC, gave Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders a piece of his mind after she accused the media of reporting a "constant barrage of fake news".
"If the media can't be trusted to report the news, then that's a dangerous place for America," Ms Sanders said at a press briefing in Washington on Tuesday local time following comments about about a supposed investigation between the Trump administration and a Russian investment fund.
"If that is the place that certain outlets are going, particularly for the purpose of spiking ratings, and if that's coming directly from the top I think that's even more scary and certainly more disgraceful," she said.
She then went on to accuse outlets for using unnamed sources and "sometimes stories with no sources at all".
But Mr Karem voiced his passionate disagreement, describing her stance as "inflammatory" and illustrating his point by comparing the accountability expected of journalists with politicians.
"Anyone of us, right, are replaceable, and anyone of us, if we don't get it right, the audience has the opportunity to turn the channel or not read us.
"You have been elected to serve for four years at least, there's no option other than that," Mr Karem said.
"We're here to ask you questions, you're here to provide the answers, and what you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country who look at it and see once again, 'the president's right' and 'everybody else out here is fake media'. And everybody in this this room is only trying to do their job."
The US President Donald Trump on Tuesday tweeted with triumph about the three CNN journalists resigning.
“Wow, CNN had to retract big story on "Russia," with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!” he tweeted.
He followed that with another one, accusing CNN of reporting "phony" Russian "stories", but did not provide evidence of multiple stories.
