The Heller Insight had won multiple national awards, and Mr. Simon never let his staff forget it. Their unwavering focus on telling the truth and nothing but the truth, he claimed, had gotten them to where they were now. That "now" was dealing with an unfolding political controversy that to the students, may as well have been Watergate or Clinton's impeachment. Mr. Simon had made the grave mistake of asking one of his eager-eyed freshmen desperate to prove herself to cover the club's inaugural meeting; the headline "An Early Springtime for Heller," helpfully suggested by Frank himself to said eager-eyed freshman who had fully embraced the cult in a flash, made him worry. It was healthy paranoia, he told himself—paranoia exacerbated when said freshman told him that paranoia was a sign of intelligence and an extremely healthy emotion.

The Insight's first foray into direct political critique came the following year, after it had already published a few editorials that tried their hardest to politely hint something was wrong. A staffer had gone as far as to make the astonishing insight that some of Frank's seeming top political aides rarely came to meetings, and certainly shared none of the ordinary members' blind zealotry—it was as if they were manipulating their peers and brainwashing them! This staffer had been accused of buying celery juice and received punishment accordingly, had an iced latte spilled on him by a club member who just so happened to trip on the pavement downtown, and was encouraged via a barrage of anonymous vitriol to step down, which he did. The lesson was learned: satire was fair game, but anything that went beyond insinuating something was rotten in the state of Heller couldn't stand.

Mr. Simon recalled what had happened to that poor staffer when Madeline presented her editorial for that year's first edition of the Insight: "A Case Study in Dictatorship: Madness at Heller High".

"Aw, come on, Madeline, you know that headline won't fly. Dictatorship? Madness? Someone's going to throw a brick through your car window before the day's out if you publish that."

"It's true, though. I was at Mr. Kurtz's meeting a few weeks ago, the one where he called us all idiots and stormed out. What is that if not madness?"

"It's something," Mr. Simon said in a hushed yet menacing tone, "that we shouldn't publish if we know what's best for us. How about we swap in one of the articles Frank sent us as suggestions? '10 Fun Facts You Didn't Know About The New Student Council?' Did you know Juliet has a pet goldfish named Vardaman? She loves animals! Yeah, that seems like a great idea. Let's publish that."

"This is so unlike you, Mr. Simon. What happened to your speech last year about keeping our head held high, winning more awards, and telling the whole truth? This is the whole truth. If we're going to publish a headlining article about how Heller is destined for greatness thanks to its innovative student leadership, not giving the flipside of that is lying. And that's not what newspapers do."

"We're a school newspaper, Madeline, not the New York Times. We're supposed to be apolitical, even if we don't like the person in charge. I agree with you—we have an obligation to tell the truth. But we can do that without becoming a microcosm of the scary universe around us, where people come to blows over who voted for whom, where political dissidents have their cars torched. We came dangerously close to that last year. This year, when political armageddon is even closer, I don't want to cross the precipice. I know I often ask, sarcastically, if we want to be the New York Times or Buzzfeed, and you know what, Buzzfeed sounds awfully good right now." Madeline rolled her eyes, so Mr. Simon continued:

"It's 10 PM, for crying out loud. Everything else is almost done. Here's what I'll say: let's try being civil with this edition, and if this goes over well, we can slowly become the underground resistance through our articles. Testing the boundaries a little—we may even win another award. It's late; I want to go home. You do too."

"Fine."

The last time the Insight's freedom of speech was tested to a substantial degree, it was when someone had dared to publish a negative review of their production of Guys and Dolls. Bad singing, poor costumes, overly bombastic stage directions, the article had claimed—were we approaching the twilight hours of Heller's theater department? Mr. Cathcart had insisted they run an apology as penance for smearing his good name; Mr. Kurtz had gotten in on the action too, arguing that anything insulting Heller was indirectly hurting him. But Mr. Simon stood his ground, and Man of La Mancha received an extremely favorable review the next year. Then after that, of course, the club hit and the debate started again, but there was a solid year or so when everything was in harmony. Harmony was good, Mr. Simon thought, and he rationalized his actions to himself as he drove home by thinking that anything that brought harmony back more swiftly was good.

Discussion Questions:

How do you think a real school newspaper would cover the events at Heller?

Is it really true that "harmony is good" and the ultimate goal? Has this idea come up before in the narrative?

With what we know about Frank and his club, do you think he'd be OK with the Insight attacking him?