To borrow from the opening lines of Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities," the classic novel about the French Revolution, these are "the best of times" and "the worst of times" – for the news media. It's because of Donald Trump's polarizing presidency.

On one hand, reporters and their news organizations are doing some very fine work, especially The New York Times and The Washington Post. It is the best of times for enterprising and investigative journalism. Several prominent political strategists of both major parties volunteered to me during the past few weeks that it looks like a "golden age" for reporting. The Post and the Times in particular are breaking major stories almost every day about mistakes, missteps, foolishness, foibles and possible scandals in the Trump administration. It's old-fashioned journalistic competition in which arguably the best news organizations in the country are locked in a newspaper war, and it's helping to shine a much-needed light on the new president and his policy makers.

Reporters have been digging into Trump's presidency and are finding journalistic gold in the form of one potential scandal after another, both large and small. Among them: Information that Jared Kushner, the president's son in law, tried to set up a special and secret line of communication to Russian leaders, for unclear purposes, outside the reach of the U.S. intelligence community, Congress, the courts and the media. There was also the story of Trump's apparently cavalier disclosure of classified information to the Russians. There were the stories about Trump's asking then-FBI Director James Comey to stop his investigation into possible improper ties between the Trump campaign in 2016 and the Kremlin. There have been reports of disarray and back-stabbing at the White House, internecine battles that are adding to government dysfunction. And there are many stories about Trump's inconsistencies and contradictions on a range of policies. All these revelations help the country evaluate the president and hold him accountable for his statements, promises and actions.

On the other hand, it is the worst of times for the Fourth Estate in a number of ways. Journalists are under harsh attack, sometimes literally, as Trump and his backers attempt to undermine the Fourth Estate's credibility. The latest case was Rep.-elect Greg Gianforte body-slamming a reporter from the Guardian newspaper who tried to ask him questions on the evening before he won a special election in late May. Gianforte, a Republican from Montana, was charged with misdemeanor assault by the local sheriff. Many press advocates were outraged and the Washington Post called in an editorial for Gianforte to resign or for the House to expel him if he is convicted of assault.

Nicolle Wallace, former White House communications director for Republican President George W. Bush, told MSNBC, "Anyone who thinks it's unfair to draw a direct line between Donald Trump calling reporters 'enemies of the state' and people beating up a working journalist, that's ridiculous. For the White House to think these are separate, isolated incidents, that they don't think they've created a climate in which something like this could happen, is an unsustainable position."

Kathleen Parker, a columnist for The Washington Post, wrote recently, "Gianforte may be a hero to some, but his violent antics should send a chill up the spines of Constitution-minded Americans. Trump's rhetoric has normalized hatred of journalists and, by implication, encouraged the sort of behavior we've now witnessed. The perpetrator wasn't some right-wing crazy from Bumduck; he was a respected businessman, now elected to Congress."

And there will be hell to pay over leaks. During his late-May trip to Europe, Trump denounced leaks from American sources about Britain's investigation into the deadly terrorist bombing at a Manchester concert May 22, calling the disclosures "deeply troubling'" and he ordered the Justice Department and other agencies to investigate and crack down. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions say such leaks endanger national security in the United States and allied nations, and it's been reported that Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey to jail journalists for receiving leaked information. At minimum, this creates more suspicion and hostility toward the media.

Lenny Steinhorn, a professor of communication at American University and a CBS News analyst, says many media critics such as Trump have a fundamental misunderstanding of journalists. People don't choose the profession just to skewer and deride the powerful but instead to "root out the truth," Steinhorn says. He adds that Trump misses the point when he argues that journalists are biased against him. Reporters are trying to hold him to account and tell the public what he is actually saying and doing. "Tell me how truth is biased?" Steinhorn asks. "What journalists do is take very seriously the role our Constitution gives them" through the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press – to hold those in power accountable.

This has traditionally been called the "watchdog role" – with the press barking as a warning to the public when something goes awry or someone in power does something wrong. And journalists have played this watchdog role very well in the past, such as in reporting how badly the Vietnam war was going despite all the positive portrayals from the military brass and the president; in exposing the lies of the Watergate scandal, in informing the nation about the injustices that generated the civil rights movement, and in giving the lie to Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis., who falsely claimed that the government was riddled with communists who were ruining the country.

Steinhorn says it's "irresponsible for a president to cast doubt on factual information," as Trump has done on many occasions, from claiming there were 3 million illegal voters in the presidential election that gave Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton an edge in the popular vote (while Trump won the Electoral College and therefore the White House), to Trump's claim that the crowd watching his inauguration was the biggest in history when photos showed that it wasn't.