FRANK S. FOLWELL | USA TODAY

Ken Paulson is a lawyer, an author, and a top executive, but his passion is reminding Americans how vital their core freedoms are

Amanda Bensen is a freelance writer who currently works as an assistant editor at Smithsonian Magazine. She can be reached at abensen@gmail.com.

THERE’S NOTHING PARTICULARLY EYE-CATCHING about Ken Paulson — his blue shirt and red tie, grayish hair and pleasant smile could blend in almost anywhere. Sitting next to him on a plane, you might guess he’s any number of classic professions: an executive, a lawyer, an author, or maybe a salesman.

Actually, he’s a combination of all those. He’s the executive editor of USA TODAY, the nation’s top-selling daily newspaper. He’s a lawyer who ran the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University for seven years. He’s been getting published since he was 16, and has written everything from music reviews to a musical revue that’s still touring the nation (“Freedom Sings”).

And he’s definitely selling something, but not just newspapers. He wants to sell Americans a pedestal for a treasure that we’ve owned for centuries but sometimes been willing to pawn: the First Amendment.

	AL GOLDIS
	Ken Paulson leads a Freedom Sings Performance in 2003 on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Ah yes, that famous constitutional love song to freedom — you probably know the lyrics by heart, right? Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, er, what’s the rest of that verse?

That’s one of Paulson’s favorite opening tricks when he speaks to journalism groups about First Amendment issues, something he’s been doing for at least a decade in collaboration with John Siegenthaler, the veteran journalist who founded the First Amendment Center.

Siegenthaler said he considers himself lucky to have been able to “steal” Paulson from the news business for a few years to run the center.

“At age 80, I’ve seen an awful lot of editors and an awful lot of lawyers,” Siegenthaler said.
“But I’ve never met one who has the unique skill to express himself on First Amendment issues with both
the knowledge and the passion that he brings to it."

The pair has been sharing a stage for so long now that they can easily finish each other’s sentences, but Siegenthaler said he still looks forward to their joint API presentations.

“The response has been wonderful, because Ken has provided not only that clear double vision - lawyer and journalist - but also because he has managed to bring both wisdom and a terrific sense of humor to our presentation,” he noted.

When asked to name all five freedoms expressly protected in those 45 words, the audience is typically befuddled. (For future reference, here’s a cheat sheet: freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition.)

“It’s astounding how little many people know about these core freedoms, how they intersect, and how integral they are to our democracy,” Paulson said.

In 2003, Paulson told an interviewer from the Poynter Institute that “if I suddenly became owner of a major media corporation, I would have the First Amendment encased on every desk, so it was visible and a reminder.”

Of course, he didn’t know at the time that he would soon become, if not an owner, at least a major power player in the national media. He seems to have forgotten about putting the amendment on every desk, but a framed poster of those 45 famous words is prominently displayed in his office at USA TODAY.

His office decorations also include an eerily prescient snapshot, though it would be easy to miss amid the clutter of sports, music and pop culture memorabilia.

It shows a crowd of exuberant journalists celebrating on the night the first edition of USA TODAY rolled off the presses about 25 years ago.

In the foreground, USA TODAY founder Al Neuharth stands proudly next to the team of Gannett journalists who helped with the launch. Paulson, a skinny, shy-looking guy with big glasses and a mustache, seems to be literally his right-hand man. That was sheer coincidence - at the time, Paulson just happened to be standing in the vending machine area when the boss decided to stage a photo there — but he became Neuharth’s chief of staff five years later.

What most people don’t realize is that the guy standing behind Paulson in the photo, jumping up and pointing a jubilant finger in the air, is Jack Kelley.

Some 22 years later, Paulson would end up struggling to put Kelley’s image behind him in a different way, as the paper’s new executive editor.

Kelley was a star USA TODAY reporter who resigned in 2004, after his editors realized that his work had included fabrications and plagiarism for more than a decade. Executive editor Karen Jurgensen also resigned in the wake of the scandal, and Paulson was tapped for the unenviable role of leading the paper out of the mess.

Unfortunately, the Kelley debacle wasn’t unique. A year later, another USA TODAY reporter resigned amid plagiarism allegations, and similar scandals have unfolded everywhere from the New York Times to the New Republic in the past decade.

The cumulative effect is much more serious than a dip in circulation numbers, Paulson argues — it’s a blow to press freedom, and thus a threat to our nation’s democratic health.

He points to surveys conducted by the First Amendment Center. Last fall, its latest poll revealed that one-third of Americans (less than in previous years, but still troublingly high) think the press “has too much freedom.” Even worse, 62 percent believe the problem of fabricated stories is widespread in the media.

“Because we’ve lost in the court of public opinion, we’re losing in the courts as well,” Paulson said. “Where once a judge wouldn’t dream of throwing a reporter in jail, now they can do it and slap them on the back at the next neighborhood barbecue. Where once a politician wouldn’t dream of restricting freedom of information, now they can use words like ‘national security’ and pretend they’re a patriot.

“Unless we do something about the way the free press is perceived by the American public, we’re going to lose battle after battle — and we’re going to lose the war."

What he plans to do about it might surprise the founding fathers, but it makes perfect sense in an age of splashy billboards, sexy television commercials and pernicious online pop-up ads.

It’s called The Liberty Tree Initiative, and it’s essentially a marketing campaign to promote the First Amendment.

The name, Paulson explains, comes from the story of an old elm tree near Boston Common that was a central meeting point for early American patriots. It was also a medium for revolutionary messages - according to an 1856 New York Times article, its branches were used to hang effigies of “Tories and persons offensive to the friends of freedom,” which angered the British so much that they cut it down in 1774.

“Now it’s known as the Liberty Stump,” Paulson said. “But that’s not quite as poetic.”

The goal of the Liberty Tree Initiative, he explains, is to change Americans’ minds about the role of the free press and the value of the First Amendment.

“It’s not a coincidence that the most dynamic, powerful, creative, successful country on the planet is also the most free,” he said. “We hope to grow respect for those freedoms, while keeping it absolutely nonpartisan and apolitical.”

The project is still in its creative infancy, but already has friends in high places, from celebrity singers, authors and actors to other journalists.

John Kay, lead singer of the classic rock band Steppenwolf, joined Paulson and others for a recent brainstorming session in Chicago, and said he’s eager to help the initiative in any way he can.

He was born in East Germany under Communist rule, and said this gives him a fierce appreciation for the freedoms that some Americans seem to take for granted.

“In my opinion, the Constitution and Bill of Rights is really America’s greatness, on paper for all the world to know and learn - and so much of the world longs for anything like that,” he said.

“And yet we have those within our country who are willing to assail those rights when they’re inconvenient. ... To me, Ken is this amazing champion. He’s one of the few I've seen step forward and say, 'People, why are we not getting this?’”

To help people “get it,” the Liberty Tree Initiative has hired the public relations firm Weber Shandwick, the creative minds that coined the highly successful ‘Got Milk?’ advertising slogan, to produce a nationwide ad campaign. The Knight Foundation is helping to fund the project, and part of the firm’s work will be pro bono.

“We’re not sure what it will be yet, but we’re hoping for something similar to the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign,” Paulson said. “What I’m looking for is a phrase that can engage the American people and be repeated over and over for 10 years, to the point that, when a politician is inclined to mess with the First Amendment, that phrase will resonate in the public’s memory.”

And in the meantime, Paulson continues to join Siegenthaler in efforts to educate media professionals - both on the editorial and business side of the industry — about First Amendment issues. They have conducted more than 260 such seminars in collaboration with the American Press Institute, reaching more than 6,000 people, said Carol Ann Riordan, API’s vice president of programming and personnel.

“I think the First Amendment is always at risk. There are constant attempts to chip away at it,” Riordan said. “I’m thankful people like Ken have picked up the gauntlet and said, you know, this cannot be.” *