Our Founding Fathers didn’t free slaves or extend voting rights to women, but they gave our nation an eminently powerful tool – the First Amendment – to achieve those essential reforms. In these fraught times, former USA TODAY editor-in-chief Ken Paulson reminds us that it remains a means for change.

Paulson outlines ways we can employ First Amendment freedoms to share ideas and work toward a more civil and constructive society. For one, insist on the “media we deserve,” unslanted and unsensationalized. Support that news coverage by paying for it. And share “stuff of substance,” interesting or informative articles.

Paulson is dean of the College of Media and Entertainment at Middle Tennessee State University and president of the First Amendment Center.