Brian Greenspun on the timeliness of the Newseum and its importance to our democracy

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Friday, May 26, 2006 | 7:15 a.m.

The Newseum couldn't be opening at a better time. In fact, it can't open soon enough.

So here's a good question: What's a Newseum? The Newseum is an interactive museum that focuses exclusively on the First Amendment to the Constitution and the long history - up to and including the present and all of our tomorrows - of media organizations and the courageous men and women who comprise them and work tirelessly to preserve this great democracy of ours.

That is a lot of words to describe what this and other newspaper, magazine, television, radio and now, Internet reporters do on a daily basis to get the news and information that is vital to the proper operation of the kind of representative democracy that is the hallmark of the United States.

The Newseum, which is being built on the last open piece of ground on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the U.S. Capitol, will welcome millions of Americans and tourists to Washington, D.C., in a way that is not possible in the other incredible museums and memorials that make our nation's capital the special place that it is. For in this place, the people will learn what it takes to be free and stay free and the sacrifices the men and women in the media make each and every day to keep us that way.

I had the privilege to represent my family at the press announcement this week, at which the Newseum's founding partners were introduced. Our gift will ensure that the name and story of Hank Greenspun and the courage he displayed as a newspaper publisher in Las Vegas will be part of the fabric of the Newseum for many generations.

Each of us was allowed a few words about what our expectations were in giving the financial support necessary to make the Newseum viable. To a person, the focus was on the First Amendment, its guarantees of religious freedom and the right to assemble, and especially the right of the people to have a press unfettered by any act of government. It is a right of the people that for too long has been taken for granted to the point that we are prepared to give it up at the first sign of trouble.

Perhaps the most iconic piece of architecture at the Newseum - and what may be among the top three in all of Washington one day - will be a 74-foot high tablet, made from 50 tons of Tennessee marble on which will be carved the 45 words of the First Amendment.

And it cannot be erected too soon because it has become abundantly clear over the past five years that the people's appreciation for those words has been lost amid the battle cries in the war against terrorism.

So much so that even the mention of the word terrorism brings with it an almost automatic response by the people to give up more and more of the rights for which we have been attacked and for which our men and women are fighting so valiantly in Iraq and other places to preserve.

The news just this week that the Bush administration has no qualms about subpoenaing reporters before grand juries to determine who leaked stories about the National Security Agency's spying programs that have targeted American citizens should be disturbing enough to make most citizens cringe.

And yet, there is hardly heard a whimper of protest from people in leadership positions who have been cowed into submission by a party line that says if you complain you are being unpatriotic. It is unpatriotic, not to mention illegal, to tap U.S. citizens' phone lines without some kind of warrant and, yet, that is becoming a matter of course these days. Without the breaking of that story by The New York Times, the public might never have known that our own government was spying on us.

Without opining on the rightness or wrongness of that spying, don't you think we, as citizens, should know what our government is doing - not for us, but to us? And now the Bush administration wants to shut down our access to the truth about what our government is doing in our names, with our names and phone numbers.

This kind of activity would never have been condoned by our Founding Fathers. There is certainly a way to proceed during times of war, but shutting off the people's right to know what their government is doing - especially in their homes and workplaces - is not the way to go in a democracy such as ours.

If anyone is the least bit confused, say the name "Watergate" and then remember the public service performed by The Washington Post and two courageous reporters named Woodward and Bernstein. For sure the president at the time, Richard Nixon, didn't think much of those who were leaking and those who were publishing, but the people and our democracy were best served as a result.

And to shut down the media's ability to report the news about government because we are at war begs the question about what is war and who determines how long we are in one.

A cynic might suggest that this president and others after him could declare the war on terrorism never over, which would mean that this concept of some kind of martial law could be the new law of the land. Forever. Where is a Founding Father when you need one?

One reason all this keeps happening and the Bush folks keep getting away with it is that the people are scared. Once scared, we become too willing to give up and give in to the promise of safety and security. We can have safety, security and a free and robust press. The problem is that the people don't appreciate what the media's role in our society really is.

That's why the First Amendment should be 174 feet high, although 74 feet should be sufficient to wake up every congressman, senator, president and Supreme Court justice who drives by the Newseum on his or her way to and from work.

Over time, if for no other reason than osmosis, those words will sink in. The millions of Americans who will witness the museum and its message will more fully understand why Thomas Jefferson, when given a choice between a democratic government and a free press, opted for the free press. For without it, he said, there could be no democracy.

The Newseum will open its doors in Washington next year. I cannot describe to you how honored my family is to play a small part in its creation. And I cannot tell you how much I wish it were already open.