Apparently, Thomas Jefferson never said “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” but that’s probably because he never hosted “Freedom of the Press Jeopardy” at the Grange Fairgrounds.
That’s how I spent my Sunday this week. It was Constitution Day, the 230th birthday of our nation’s founding document. Organizers had sought volunteers to inhabit a “Constitution Village” of informative displays. As a journalist and a journ prof, I got asked to preside over the free press table.
But when I learned that I was expected to create “an educational poster or activity (trivia game, graphic, etc.) that illustrates” the First Amendment’s protection of a free press, I realized I was in over my head. A lecture, I could give. A poster with stirring quotes about the press’ essential role in a democracy, I could manage. But something fun and interactive? Not really my skill set.
Fortunately, my colleague Pam Monk used to be a middle school teacher. Pam immediately came up with the “Jeopardy” idea and acquired the foam core, glitter paper, markers and pushpins needed to make it happen. All I had to do, with the considerable help of our colleague Cindy Simmons, was come up with the “Jeopardy”-style answers and questions.
Pam also shamelessly planned to use Cubby and Sparky, outfitted in vests labeled “Watchdogs of Democracy,” to attract visitors to our table. Alas, the Grange Fair prohibits pooches, even adorable ones.
Just as well, perhaps. Cubby and Sparky are more lapdogs than watchdogs. And as Cavachons — half Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, half Bichon Frise – they sound more like royalists than revolutionaries.
Undaunted, Pam pivoted to a flock of flamingos she labeled “Watchbirds of Democracy,” aka “The Flamingos of Freedom.” Seeing the feathery five clustered in front of our exhibitor’s table, I decided that they could represent another First Amendment freedom: the right to peaceably assemble.
Pam had created our resplendently glittery Jeopardy board on tri-fold foam core, which is where the need for eternal vigilance came into play. Though the board, like the First Amendment itself, seemed sturdy enough to stand on its own, it proved vulnerable to sudden shifts in the (political) winds.
After the first time it keeled over, I tried, like a one-man ACLU, to buttress it with pushpins fore and aft, but frequent jostlings and occasional gusts tipped it over multiple times. Our neighbors at the Freedom of Religion table weathered similar assaults.
Nevertheless, the show had to go on. Our version of “Jeopardy” was multiple-choice. When some of our would-be contestants balked at revealing their ignorance of the topic, we assured them that each answer had three questions and we would give them three chances. Furthermore, some of the wrong questions were ridiculous.
From the “Who Said It?” category:
WHO IS CALVIN KLEIN, CONTEMPORARY US FASHION DESIGNER?
WHO IS JOHN CALVIN, 16TH CENTURY THEOLOGIAN
WHO IS CALVIN COOLIDGE, 30TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?
From “The Supremes”:
The first Latina on the U.S. Supreme Court, this justice lived in public housing as a child and went on to be an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She worked as an assistant district attorney in New York and famously invited other justices to dance on the day of her inauguration.
WHO IS DIANA ROSS?
WHO IS CARMEN MIRANDA?
WHO IS SONIA SOTOMAYOR?
From “Odds and Ends”:
Only one justice was an absolutist, believing that the First Amendment protected all speech.
WHO WAS FREDERICK DOUGLASS?
WHO WAS DOUGLAS MACARTHUR?
WHO WAS WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS?
From “The Watchdog”:
Most of them have exposed corruption in government.
Who are the members of the Justice League of America?
What are hidden cameras in the bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol?
What are the news stories that have been awarded the annual Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting?
By now an astute contestant might notice another key to being invited to our mythical “Tournament of Champions”: The correct question was always going to be the last one.
Winners, which is to say, everyone, received Bulwark Bucks, each inscribed with the George Mason quote, “The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments” – and an invitation to be photographed with the Flamingos of Freedom.
I kept thinking we’d get a visitor primed to argue that there is entirely too much press freedom and it’s high time the government reined in those “enemies of the people,” as our 45th president calls them.
“Don’t argue with them,” I told myself. “Just ask them why they think what they think.”
But nobody tried to spoil the party. There was even birthday cake.
