Sarah Ruger

Opinion contributor

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently cut print production from seven to five days a week. That makes Pittsburgh the largest city in the United States without a daily newspaper.

American newsrooms are under attack — and not just from budget cuts due to declining circulation. Cries of “fake news” and “enemy of the people” routinely are heard from some of the nation’s top political and business leaders, right up to President Donald Trump. The president has called journalists unpatriotic, dangerous and sick. Last week, he asked the Justice Department to investigate an anonymous New York Times op-ed critical of the administration.

With all of this, journalism should be on the ropes — but fortunately it’s holding its own.

Anecdotal evidence from across the United States indicates interest in journalism schools increased over the past two years. The elite Columbia Graduate School of Journalism saw its applications for the 2017-18 term rise 10 percent from the previous year (when overall graduate school applications had risen just 1.2 percent), and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism received its highest numberof applications last year.

Far too much intimidation of journalists

Things didn’t slow this term. The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago received 24 percent more undergraduate journalism applications for this school year than for 2017-18.

There’s not enough information to confirm the trend in media criticism is driving j-school enrollment. But the latter could, at least, signal a generation drawn to an institution they realize is critical to social progress. Whether it’s a local reporter challenging a sheriff about high incarceration rates and police violence, or a national news correspondent pushing an immigration and customs official to answer questions about border policy, the Fourth Estate is an essential check on power.

To agitate, investigate and scrutinize our leaders and institutions — that ability is the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship. And that freedom cannot be selective.

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According to the most recent Gallup/Knight Foundation Survey on Trust, Media and Democracy, more than 80 percent of U.S. adults believe that the news media are critical or very important to our democracy. At the same time, however, a third of Americans favor fining news outlets they see as biased or inaccurate — and 45 percent of Republicans would go as far to allow the courts to shut those outlets down.

We already see far too much of this kind of intimidation today.

Journalists and freelance writers have been forced to hand over cellphones and other devices to border agents for inspection when exiting or entering the United States. Border agents have also interrogated journalists about everything from private conversations to their social media posts.

At a local level, in the past two years journalists have been arrested at least 40 times. Reporter Dan Heyman was arrested in West Virginia last year for simply asking then-Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price a question about health care legislation (the charge was willful disruption of state government processes).

Disagree with coverage, but support free press

Journalists aren't targeted only by government. Project Veritas, an organization that uses deceit to meet and secretly record groups and individuals, have also gone after journalists. Earlier this year, several of its members misrepresented themselves as victims of then-Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore to Washington Post reporters in an attempt to undermine the journalists’ credibility.

The uptick in journalism school is a bright spot amid those threats, but that doesn’t fully assuage fears surrounding continued freedom of the press. It’s possible to disagree with coverage and still believe journalists should be able to freely ask questions and report on what they find. That should be the case for all reporters, scholars, artists and others challenging the status quo and holding to account those in power.

Sarah Ruger directs the Charles Koch Institute’s free expression initiatives. Follow her on Twitter: @SarahRuger