When genes aren't enough

When Jay Leno asks people on the street simple questions about history or famous figures, it seems funny that citizens can't name the chief justice of the Supreme Court or even the first president of the United States. But it's that sick-to-the-stomach-funny, the kind you get when you feel things are essentially going to pot.
But such ignorance doesn't have to be the norm. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor hit the nail on the head in a speech this month when she said the "unintended effect" of the No Child Left Behind Act is that it has squeezed out civic education. She's supporting a program called Our Courts, an interactive educational game for students that focuses on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
"Knowledge about our government is not handed down through the gene pool. Every generation has to learn it and we have work to do," she said.
The news media --old and new--can play a huge role in supporting civic education by building into promotional literature the value of a free press. What if every time you turned on the TV, saw a newspaper mast head or a political blog site , there was a slogan that said: "Democracy and a free press go hand in hand."
When, as O'Connor said, more people know the names of the judges on American Idol than on the Supreme Court, it's time to starting singing more loudly about the First Amendment.