New Newseum
I’ve just returned from a trip to the other Washington. I enjoyed all the standard D.C. sites and attractions– visiting monuments, parks, historic homes and museums and walking about 10 miles each day!
One of the must-sees on my list was the new Newseum, a museum devoted to journalists and journalism. But you don’t have to be a part of the profession to appreciate the exhibits.
Some of the highlights include the Berlin Wall gallery with a three-story guard tower and eight sections of the original wall, an interactive newsroom, a Pulitzer Prize photographs gallery, a journalists memorial devoted to reporters who have died while covering the news and a September 11th gallery. I had no idea the 9/11 exhibit would have such a profound affect on me. I thought I had heard all of the stories and seen all of the footage, but just reading the timeline and looking at a piece of the Twin Towers had me choked up.
One of the most simple yet amazing exhibits was the “Today’s Front Pages Gallery”. Each day the museum staff prints the front pages from a newspaper in each of the 50 states and several countries from around the globe. It was incredibly fascinating to see what “made the news” in different parts of the world. In another section of the Newseum, you could even read a newspaper dating back to the American Revolution and beyond. It is shocking how much language and news styles have changes since then and a stark reminder of how much the news business continues to evolve and change.
And while the museum may be devoted to journalism and its impact on the world, it’s also a reflection of all of our lives. Journalism is, after all, the documentation of events that will eventually become history.