Newseum!

So I have been wanting to go to the Newseum for a very long time, but since they charge a $20 admission I have been putting it off. Apparently that $20 was a block for me, haha. Anyway my father came into town and I had the opportunity to entertain him. I had suggested Air and Space, but he was more interested in the Newseum, which was very cool. The Newseum was a lot larger than we had thought and has 4 floors!

When we got in there was an introduction movie to help us navigate the Newseum. Our first exhibit was the Berlin Wall and what it was like for the East Germans to receive news as opposed to the West Germans. Apparently the Eastern Germans were able to get news in three minute segments by calling in. The next section was about using the media to help the FBI and the different criminals who were apprehended such as the Teflon Don, the Unabomber, etc. There was also a thing about Patty Hearst which was pretty neat, I hadn't heard about her scandal.

 

We proceeded to the top of the building where we had an awesome view of Pennsylvania Ave. We were able to take some pictures and they had a long hallway where they had the front page news for every state. It was good timing because it was right after Obama's acceptance speech. They then had an exhibit about the history of presidential campaigns and how things changed with the election of Obama. It was really neat- my father did not know who Jon Stewart was before then, haha. We then went to an exhibit on the history of media, and it showed famous front page news from different years. They even had a newspaper that incorrectly printed the name of the Presidential victor years ago.

 

On the next floor there was a very powerful exhibit on 9/11. They had a news antennae that was on the World Trade Center. They showed the timeline of the news and how the events unfolded. They had the newspaper front pages from many different states as well. The next exhibit was about the freedoms of the first amendment, and there was a map of the world at showed the level of freedom of the press in the different countries. They also have a news studio in the Newseum that Tim Russert works out of, which we got to see from the windows. They had an interesting exhibit on journalists who had died while broadcasting the news. The majority of them were men, but one woman in Mexico who was slain because she was reporting the news outside of what the drug cartels wanted.

 

On the second floor they had an interesting exhibit on the first dogs in the White House. It seemed a little random but it was so interesting to see what dogs the presidents had. Apparently JFK was allergic to dogs but still had them. They had an interactive newsroom and ethics center which we looked at but did not participate in it much. The last exhibit was one on Pulitzer prize photography. They had all of the different photograph winners for the last 50 years. They even had the explanations of the photographs and the circumstances surrounding them. It was quite moving and my favorite thing in the museum. The winners for this year included a photograph of a young girl in Iran after a bombing. The other one was a veteran and had been denied an apartment, who was crying and he had been suffering from PTSD. I almost cried myself. The last thing we did was a 4-D movie about the news and how it was broadcasted historically. It was not super impressive but it was fine as our brains were fried at that point. My Dad and I spent 3.5 hours there but if I was able, I would have spent all day there! It was definitely worth the trip and I would recommend it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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