D.C.'s Newseum a time capsule that rolls
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Museums are traditionally places where time stands still.
Not so with the Newseum in Washington, D.C. News changes by the minute, which is reflected in the building's 14 galleries and 15 theaters. It is a must-see for folks traveling to the nation's capital for the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
(James P. Blair/Newseum)
The Newseum is open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Inauguration Day; buy museum tickets in advance online at newseum.org.
ADMISSION: $20 general admission; $18 for people older than 64; $13 for ages 7-17. Free for kids under 7.
TIP: On Inauguration Day, no outside food or beverages are allowed in the museum. Outdoor terraces will be closed to the public and lawn chairs are not permitted.
The $450 million glass, steel and stone museum opened on April 11. I swung by the Newseum in late April during a trip to catch the Cubs at the new Nationals Park. The Cubs are another artifact that is frozen in time.
One of the best things about the museum is to walk by 600 newspaper front pages from 67 countries. The papers are changed daily. Museum officials say visitors were standing five deep in front of an all-time high of 741 newspapers the day after Obama's election.
And people say newspapers are dead.
I say the answer is just to roll out a commemorative edition every couple of weeks.
The hot tip with the Newseum is that it is the only museum fronting the Jan. 20 inaugural parade route. The museum is between the U.S. Capitol and the White House. The museum's large glass windows offer a panoramic view of Pennsylvania Avenue, but window space is standing room only. The six-level museum attracted more than 10,000 visitors on its opening day. The Newseum expects to accommodate up to 20,000 guests on Inauguration Day.
Visitors will be charged regular $20 admission rates. They can see highlights from President Obama's swearing-in ceremony and inaugural parade on a 40-by-22-foot high-definition media screen and in a theater where news is viewed on a 90-foot-long video wall. The Newseum will feature other presidential and inaugural exhibits, including historic front pages, an exhibit of front pages from Obama's election and a video of inaugural speeches from past U.S. presidents.
The Newseum bills itself as the world's most interactive museum by taking visitors behind the scenes of the news-making process and emphasizing the importance of a free press and the First Amendment.
On the museum's fifth floor, I saw a quote from the country's first black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall: "If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man sitting alone in his own house what books he may read or what films he may watch." I then glanced out the window at the White House where President George W. Bush resided. I wonder if they knew what I was thinking.
The fourth level is anchored by a 9/11 gallery that includes a section of a 360-foot antenna that sat atop the north tower of the World Trade Center. But more chilling are the images of free-lance photographer Bill Biggart, 54, the only working journalist killed covering the terrorist attack. Rescue workers found his three demolished cameras and burnt press credentials. One camera had a flash card carrying almost 150 digital images. Visitors see the images he made just before he died.
All the news is not bad. The dimly lit News Corporation News History Gallery -- the museum's largest gallery -- contains more than 30,000 historic newspapers going back to more than 500 years.
Sounds like my home office.
From a museum drawer I pulled out a 1968 Memphis Commercial Appeal paper about the murder of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and then pulled out the Detroit News where the next day headline reads "7,000 Troops Guard Detroit-Riot Loss Near $100 million." I found the Chicago Daily Tribune's infamous "Dewey Defeats Truman" and learned that the Trib's second deadline mistake was printing part of the top story's second paragraph upside down.
Then, in a glass case near a Mark Twain pipe and inkwell I spotted an April 22, 1986, edition of the Chicago Sun-Times with the headline "Boom! It's More Dirt on Al Capone" (on the opening of the Capone vault) with the byline of Donald M. Schwartz. The paper also featured a story headlined "Gunman Holds Woman Hostage" by Don Hayner (now the Sun-Times managing editor) and Leon Pitt. You can keep Ron Santo out of the Baseball Hall of Fame but you can't keep Don Hayner out of the Newseum.
The gallery also features former Sun-Times and Tribune columnist Mike Royko's source-filled Rolodex, courtesy of his widow, Judy, and on loan from the Newberry Library. There was a graphic of Ernest Hemingway's World War II press credentials and an original type written Ernie Pyle manuscript, "The Ways of D.E. (Destroyer Escort) Sailors." I noticed Pyle's short paragraphs and immediately made the connection with Royko.
I hadn't been on emotional overload like this since I first visited Cooperstown, N.Y. These were my heroes as a high school journalist.
I felt old when in another glass case I saw a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer from the mid-1980s. I worked on one of those, considered the world's first laptop computer. The TRS-80 screens could hold about four lines of copy. Times were tough.
Before leaving, I studied the Newseum's enormous map that's color coordinated to illustrate the level of press freedom around the world. Since 1980, Freedom House has conducted an annual press freedom survey of 195 countries and territories. They rank 0 the best, 100 the worst based on data that analyzes how free the flow of news is in each country. Press freedoms are in the midst of a six-year decline. In April, countries such as China, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela scored 61 and over were deemed "not free.'' (Full report at freedomhouse.org.)
The Newseum says it is independent of media companies, although there are strong ties with USA Today in Arlington, Va. A smaller version of the museum used to be part of the USA Today complex. And last month, USA Today editor Ken Paulson announced he was leaving the paper to become president of the Newseum and Freedom Forum, also based in Arlington. He called the Newseum "the Yankee Stadium of the First Amendment." The Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit, is the main funder of operations. The museum also receives support from foundations, media organizations and individuals.
This point is clearly made as you enter the Newseum. The glass facade includes a 74-foot-tall marble tablet inscribed with the First Amendment. I entered on the concourse level and was met with remnants of the Berlin Wall, one of the largest collections of original sections outside Germany. The area details how the wall could not keep out news and information, which helped topple a closed society. At its best, media can be an impetus for change, which makes the Newseum a perfect destination in 2009.