I don't think we're actually far apart here except on the terminology. I don't argue that it's an ideological thing. They're a business, and their business interests led them to cover Trump in a way that was highly favorable to him (for example, replacing ideological conservatives on their talking-head staff with Trump die-hards in order to maintain a two-way controversy and airing live footage of his rallies). Since the campaign, in order to maintain the standard MSM bullshit both-sides thing (again, for business purposes), they've balanced coverage of the dumpster fire administration with Republican spin. Note that the same study that shows overwhelmingly negative overall coverage shows that 80% of sources quoted are Republicans (that's general rather than specifically for CNN, but I don't see them as being distinguishable from the rest of the MSM except in being more superficial), and only 6% are Democrats. Whatever the collective ideology of the editorial staff (if there is a coherent one, which is unlikely), the practical effect of coverage decisions is a clear pro-Trump bias.