 Newseum is back and it’s bigger and better than ever! In fact the new Newseum is hard to ignore. The front facade includes a 74-foot-high, 50-ton Tennessee marble tablet etched with the words of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. An expansive window setback in the center of the facade frames a gigantic, 40” X 22” media screen. The combined effect of these structural elements evokes thoughts of a television and what better way to capture the attention of young people than through television? The $450 million, 250,000-square-foot museum dedicated to educating the public about the news, newsgathering, and the role of a free press, re-opened on Friday, April 11th in Washington DC. The original and smaller Newseum, located across the Potomac in Arlington, VA, closed over 6 years ago. Even the new location, situated almost midway between the White House and the Capitol on Pennsylvania Avenue, is in many ways a testament to the important role the free press plays in our democracy. The impressive edifice stands symbolically as a watchful eye on the powerful executive and legislative branches of our government. Newseum is comprised of 7 levels, 14 galleries, 15 theatres and two television studios. Hovering high above in the 90-foot atrium are a TV news helicopter and a communications satellite. Visitors can check out a giant 40-foot Berlin Wall guard tower, a bullet-riddled truck used by Time reporters and photographers during the siege of Sarajevo in 1990s and the 9/11 exhibit featuring the twisted remnants of the huge broadcast antennae from the top of the World Trade Center. Museum-goers can see a wall-sized map comparing press freedom from around the world and the Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial, a tribute to more than 1,800 reporters, photographers, editors and broadcasters who have died in the line of duty. Billed on its website as the ‘world’s most interactive museum’, Newseum includes 130 interactive stations featuring more than two dozen interactive programs. There’s also an interactive newsroom where visitors can play television correspondent, choose a Washington backdrop, read from the teleprompter and take home a copy of their TV news debut. Visitors can play news trivia games including one in which players compete against each other, solving newsroom dilemmas about ethics. “This may be the most interactive museum ever, although I can’t prove it,” American Association of Museums President Ford Bell told USA TODAY. “I have a 15-year-old, and I cannot get him to go to any museums that aren’t interactive. That’s just what they’re used to.” Newseum Fast Facts Address: 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20001 Phone Number: 888/NEWSEUM (888-639-7386) Website: www.newseum.org Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day) General Admission:
Adults (13-64) $20
Seniors (65+) $18
Youth (7-12) $13
Children (6 and younger) Free Advance Tickets:
Phone: 888-639-7386
Online: www.newseum.org Check out a Newseum Virtual Tour at USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2008-04-03-newseum-graphic_n.htm Newseum by the Numbers… 643,000 – Total square footage of the project at Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, N.W.
250,000 – Newseum square footage.
146,000 – Residential square footage.
100,000 – Words in the new Newseum scripts. Approximately half are in the News History Gallery.
81,000 – Pounds of artifacts moved into the building by the end of March 2007, including a
CONUS 1 satellite truck and the Berlin Wall guard tower.
35,000 – Total number of historic newspaper front pages in the Newseum collection, going back nearly 500 years.
6,214 – Number of artifacts in the Newseum collection (excluding newspapers and photographs).
3,800 – Images (cartoons, comics, front pages, photographs and other graphic elements) on display in the galleries and walkways.
3,262 – Age, in years, of the oldest artifact in the Newseum collection, a Cuneiform brick from Sumeria. The second-oldest artifact in the Newseum collection, a statue of Thoth from ancient Egypt, is 2,756 years old.
1,063 – Press passes in the Newseum collection.
1,000 – Historic newspaper front pages and magazine covers accessible through 10 interactive kiosks in the News History Gallery.
450 – Total investment, in millions of dollars, by the Freedom Forum, foundations, families and corporations in the Newseum building project.
367 – Historic newspapers and magazines on display in the News History Gallery.
271 – Artifact donors with whom the curatorial staff has worked since the new Newseum project began.
137 – Height, in feet, of the building at its tallest point.
130 – Interactive stations featuring more than two dozen different interactive programs throughout the Newseum.
100 – Minimum number of different video productions in the new Newseum; and the number of miles of fiber-optic cable ordered for the Newseum; also the distance in feet that the three main elevators will glide between the lowest (Concourse) level and the top level of the Newseum.
99 – Television sets in the Newseum collection.
90 – Height, in feet, of the Great Hall of News atrium (compared with the 68-foot-tall Sistine Chapel and the 96-foot-tall hall of Washington, D.C.’s Union Station).
76 – Nondigital cameras in the Newseum collection.
69 – Artifact lenders with whom the curatorial staff has worked since the new Newseum project began.
68 – Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers interviewed for the Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery. The Pulitzer kiosk features more than 15 hours of content and more than 1,000 photographs.
50 – Tons of Tennessee marble used to create the First Amendment tablet on the building’s Pennsylvania Avenue façade.
48 – Number of 32-inch monitors embedded in two walls (24 on each wall) of the 28-foot-tall minitheater in the Internet, TV and Radio Gallery.
28 – Reporters’ notepads and notebooks in the Newseum collection.
15 – Theaters (Includes the Annenberg Theater, Big Screen Theater, Documentary Theater, Sports Theater, 3 Orientation Theaters, 5 News History Gallery “Sidebar” Theaters, and theaters in the Pulitzer, 9/11 and Internet, TV and Radio galleries.)
14 – Major galleries (Includes Today’s Front Pages; Early News; Great Books; News History; 9/11; First Amendment; World News; Journalists Memorial; Internet, TV and Radio; Pulitzer Prize Photographs; Berlin Wall; Ethics Center; Interactive Newsroom; and the Changing Exhibits Gallery.)
12 – Additional exhibit areas (Includes Comics, CONUS and CNN videophone, Pennsylvania Avenue Terrace, Bolles car, spotlight on photojournalism, Five Freedoms Walkway, New Yorker cartoons, World in Pictures, Unforgettable Photos, Pennsylvania Avenue front pages, helicopter, and satellite.)
8 – Sections of the Berlin Wall, each weighing approximately three tons and measuring 12 feet high and four feet across.
7 – Levels.
5 – Digital cameras in the Newseum collection.
2 – Television studios.
1 – Giant media screen Sources
www.newseum.org
Freedom Forum, Christy Mumford Jerding
New York Times
USA Today
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