The Newsuem, Washington DC

The Newseum is an interactive museum of news and journalism with six floors of informational and interactive exhibits. The Newseum’s mission is to “champion the five freedoms of the First Amendment through education, information and entertainment.” Can you name our five freedoms protected by the First Amendment? See to bottom of the the post for the answer.

The Museum does a great job of covering five centuries of US and World news. We spent over five hours here without realizing it and had a fascinating time..

Here are some of the amazing exhibits that stood out to us.:

The Newseum daily receives and displays newspaper front pages from all 50 states and from around the world each day. 

The Berlin Wall exhibit included several wall sections and the guard tower from the famous checkpoint Charlie. It also explained and showed the history of the Berlin wall and video of when it came down.

Front of the wall

Back of the wall

On the sixth floor there is an outdoor terrace overlooking Pennsylvania Blvd and the city. There are plaques showing the historical events that have taken place on this famous Blvd. The terrace also offers great views of the Capital building.

There is a large gallery where one can see actual newspapers, news documents and video clips of key historical moments throughout our history.

The 911 exhibit included the recovered TV antenna from one of the World Trade Center buildings and the next day’s newspaper front pages from the leading newspapers around the US and world. There is also a movie that showed how several journalist risks their own lives to cover the World Trade Center events as they unfolded. It was very moving video that we had not seen before.

This was really cool ~ a world map showing where there is freedom of the press and where there is not. Green indicates free press countries, yellow is partially free and red is not free press. It puts our freedoms into perspective, huh?

Interactive Newsroom where you can try being a TV news reporter. Brad is showing where President Obama's motorcade will be arriving. :-)

The President Kennedy exhibit (Creating of Camelot) showed how they utilize the media to create a specific image of his family and presidency.  He was the first president to utilize TV and print media in this way.

 A few more exhibits to mention....

• The special FBI exhibit covered key cases and investigations over the last 100 years. This included Al Capone, The Unabomber, Waco and the 9/11 investigation. We learned here that for days after the towers came down, the rescuers searching for survivors in the rubble heard cell phones ringing as people were calling the phones trying to find their loved one.Yes, time to grab a tissue,
• The Kennedy assassination exhibit included video of the assassination, the arrest and killing of Lee Harvey Oswald and how the three TV networks (at that time a rarity) did around the clock coverage until his funeral. This was the first time TV provided this kind of coverage. One shooter, now really..........
• Journalist memorial - photos of every journalist world-wide who died in the course of pursuing the news
• Pulitzer prize winner photo gallery - This was very cool, with many photos we've all become familiar with over the years.
• The history of Sports reporting movie - this was a 25-minute movie showing how sports have been reported over the years.
• And SO MUCH MORE!

Tip: If you don’t have much time then definitely skip the 4-D movie. Also your admission ticket (nope, this isn't free, it's about $22/person) is good for two days so you don't have to do it all in one day. Definitely a place to visit when in Washington, DC. Also, if you order tickets from thee Newsuem website, you'll save 10%.

Answer to what freedoms does our first amendment protect:  the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assemble and to petition the Government

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:

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.

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