The Newseum: An Interactive Museum of News
Rachel Thomason | Executive Director

Remember those boring museums your mom dragged to you to when you were a kid? How about all those school field trips where you went to the same place year after year? Well, this is one museum that is different.

If you’ve ever been interested in a career in media, ever wanted to know more about the information age, or if you have ever read a newspaper, listened to a radio broadcast, or surfed the Internet for the latest news, you should visit the Newseum.

The Newseum is an interactive museum of everything related to the news. The amount of information that they have packed into this three-floor building amazed me when I first visited over fall break.

Background Information
The Freedom Forum, an international foundation dedicated to free press and First Amendment rights, funds this $50 million, 72,000-square-foot museum. It opened in 1997 and continues to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors daily.

Attractions and Programs
There is so much to see and do here that you could literally spend a whole day lost in the exhibits. Your visit starts with an overview of the worldwide reach of news. A large spherical exhibit hangs between two floors displaying 1,841 newspaper nameplates from around the globe. A film is shown on the area’s only high-definition video theatre where you can watch great moments in history and get an introduction to what the Newseum is all about. In this section of the museum, you can also find out what was happening in the world the month and year you were born.

After you have been properly introduced to the world of news, you move on to the museum’s historical section. Here you can trace the evolution of news from ancient times, to the technological advancements we use today. There are many artifacts to examine that document the topics and heroes of the past. Many vintage devices as well as historic newspapers can be found here.

After you have toured the halls of the past, you are catapulted into the news of today and the future. From an overlook, you see current events of the day, broadcast onto a Video News Wall, measuring one block in length. Underneath this impressive screen is an equally impressive display of the day’s front pages from 70 U.S. and international newspapers. As the interactive touch screen monitors show images from around the world, headlines fly by you on the many electronic news "zippers."

After, you are invited to create a broadcast of your own in their studio. Step into a reporter’s shoes by reading a story off a teleprompter, and broadcasting your image and voice out into the audience. You can even purchase a video of your performance. There are also many other interactive exhibits including touch screen monitors and poll stations where you get to be the editor of the newspaper, a reporter or a photojournalist.

In addition to the above permanent exhibits, there is a spotlight section. When I was there, the spotlight was "War Stories" and was extended due to the recent events in New York and at the Pentagon. A whole floor was dedicated to enlarged photographs of the incident. There also was archive war footage, historic artifacts, interactive databases, and related books examining media coverage of the Crimean War in 1853 through the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

This museum is unique because no matter how many times you go, you will never see the same things twice. The museum is constantly changing.

Freedom Park
After touring the museum, head outside to Freedom Park. This outdoor area stands to celebrate the freedom of the press and the struggle it took to preserve it. There is a journalist’s memorial that pays tribute to the many journalists who died while reporting and an elegant spiral of colored glass and steel that honors more than 1,500 of them. The sculpture is updated each year. One of their most interesting of these exhibits features eight pieces of the Berlin Wall. The museum claims that it is the largest display of original Berlin Wall sections outside Germany. There are also a variety of icons that symbolize victory over freedom and oppression. Among them, a fallen statue of Lenin from the former Soviet Union and a bronze casting of the jail-cell door from Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 imprisonment.

Location
The Newseum and Freedom Park are located in Arlington, VA near the Iwo Jima Memorial. You can drive and pay to park or take the Orange or Blue line on the Metro to the Rosslyn Station. There is also a photojournalism gallery in New York that features exhibits, lectures, films, and other activities. It is located in Manhattan at 57th Street and Madison Avenue.

Contact Information
NEWSEUM
1101 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22209
888/NEWSEUM
newseum@freedomforum.org
www.newseum.org

This is one museum that you shouldn’t skip on your tour of D.C. The Newseum is open Tuesday though Sunday from 10:00am to 5:00pm except on holidays including Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Freedom Park is open every day from dawn to dusk and admission is free for both sites.