Media
The Newseum, decked out in all its First Amendment glory
There’s a 4-D movie theatre in the colossal Newseum in Washington D.C. that attempts, with the aid of all the tricks and gadgets of modern-day interactive moviegoing, to paint journalism as the noblest and most exciting of professions. Whether journalism is noble or not, I’ll leave for others to decide (though the preponderance of celebrity-news round-up shows would seem to argue for the latter), but as for its being exciting, that I can vouch for. For the last five years, my life, like those of the three “stars” of the Newseum’s “I-Witness” re-enactments – Revolutionary War chronicler and free-speech advocate Isaiah Thomas; trailblazing investigative journalist Nellie Bly; and Edward R. Murrow, who broadcast radio reports from a London rooftop during the Nazi Blitz – has been an endless stream of explosive moments and high intrigue that only 3-D glasses, B-grade special effects, and bucking movie-theatre chairs could ever do justice to. It’s one thing for a viewer to feel an adrenaline rush while dodging Red Coat fire at Lexington or Luftwaffe fire in England, but just imagine the excitement one would feel experiencing in four dimensions the simulated joy of jumping from my bed directly into my desk chair at one in the afternoon to read e-mails and then stare idly at the wall until the desire for breakfast becomes overpowering.
This way, ladies and gentlemen; please form an orderly queue.
This cinematic oversight aside, whoever came up with the idea for the Newseum is a curatorial genius, if only because its mandate is so broad as to be almost infinite, or perhaps nonexistent. Technically, anything that’s part of “news history” will do, meaning just about anything from human history will do, from explications of the principles of reporting to exhibits about Hurricane Katrina and Woodstock. As long as a journalist was there, or as long as the world of news reporting can somehow be tied in, any exhibit will be welcome. It really is brilliant: a museum with a mandate to cover everything. And who wouldn’t pay $15 to see everything?
So what do you, the visitor, get for your money?
A 74-foot marble carving of the First Amendment on the museum’s outer wall (just down Pennsylvania Ave. from the White House, like 45 words of warning to anyone who takes up residence there), exhibits on reportorial ethics, a Great Books Gallery featuring “influential and historic works on freedom and the rights of man,” an enormous map pointing out the status of the press in every country of the world, video footage featuring famous newspeople and politicians explaining what a free press means to them, and quotes from Thomas Jefferson, Cato, John Locke, Thurgood Marshall and dozens of other great thinkers spread throughout the museum reminding visitors of the importance of the journalistic independence.
This is the Newseum as institutional defender of America’s Constitutional ideals: a museum for the people, by the people, and reminding the people.
Then you’ve got exhibits on modern-day media bias; video footage of newsmen from Fox, NBC, and NPR defending their impartiality and impugning their colleagues’ lack thereof; a hallway with hundreds of front pages from international daily newspapers; an interactive newsroom, where visitors can sit behind an anchor’s desk or pick up a pen and paper and see what it’s like to be a real reporter; and the Internet, TV, and Radio Gallery, an look at ever-changing technology and the effects it’s had on the industry of news-gathering.
This is the Newseum as timely cultural marker: un-stuffy place-to-be, tuned in to the concerns of the day.
And last you get an exhibit about Woodstock and the birth of rock journalism, chunks of the Berlin Wall and the World Trade Center, an entire room devoted to the hunt for John Wilkes Booth, a sports theatre, a history of Pennsylvania Ave., a South African ballot box, a gallery of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs …
This is the Newseum as whatever it wants to be and whatever gets bodies through the door. This Newseum features something for everyone: conspiracy theorists, history buffs, nostalgists, sports fanatics, lovers of liberty, lovers of fine art. This Newseum is omnivorous, ecumenical, comprehensive, and diffuse.
At one point late in my visit I was watching footage of Tom Brokaw reporting from the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and when the screen went dark, I was left staring at my reflection. At first I laughed; I had spent the previous hour feeling pretty proud of myself for being part of such a noble profession, but I realized it was ridiculous to think that what I do and what Tom Brokaw has done over the years could even be spoken of in the same sentence. Scribbling notes down in my little notebook in that enormous monument to journalistic integrity, I reminded myself: “This man reports from moments of real historical weight, and you write parodies about playing basketball in your pajamas.”
Then I realized that the distinction didn’t matter. Journalists, writers, reporters, unbiased witnesses, critical thinkers: We’re all getting swallowed up by the black hole of Internet dilettantism, social-networking literary democratization, and up-to-the-second celebrity sensationalism.
And this is the Newseum as natural history museum, exhibiting artifacts from humanity’s past. And journalists as we’ve known them will soon be like those neanderthal tribes in their glass display cases: on the hunt but made out of wax.
Comments
One Comment
Buy:Aricept.Acomplia.Zocor.Zetia.Nymphomax.Benicar.Amoxicillin.Prozac.Lasix.Buspar.Cozaar.Wellbutrin SR.Lipothin.Female Pink Viagra.Lipitor.SleepWell.Ventolin.Advair.Female Cialis.Seroquel….
Add a Comment