Thing 75a - Complete!

[thingism]

75a. Visit the Newseum

Date completed: 30 December 2012

So I visited the Newseum today because I had a couple of paid-for Living Social tickets expiring tomorrow. My husband bailed on me at the last second, and I couldn't find anyone else to take the extra ticket, so as I left the museum I handed it to a woman in line who said she didn't have one. I hope she was able to use it.

The museum itself was well done, but pretty depressing. I guess I shouldn't have been all that surprised - after all, what makes the news? Crime, tragedy, and politics. All pretty depressing subjects. Luckily there was a fair amount of "fake news" (The Daily Show, SNL, etc.) that helped lighten things a bit. But when your 9/11 exhibit has boxes of tissues placed at regular intervals, you know you're not in for a breezy jaunt through the museum. The memorial to journalists killed on the job was extra heartbreaking.

It's somewhere I'm glad I went, but I don't see myself visiting again. I'm just not much of a news junkie.

Comments

[katekintail.livejournal.com]

Aw, sorry you didn't love it more. I could spend DAYS in that museum and still find things to look at! Definitely my favorite museum in DC, hands down.

I love the room with all the artifacts and the drawers full of papers you can pull out and look at--so neat to see what the other front page news items were on the day the Titanic sank, for example. When I went, there was a special exhibit on Katrina coverage with tons of tissue boxes strategically placed around as well, which I used of course. Apart from the artifacts room, I love the first pets exhibit on one of the hallways and the actual news studio you can go in and tour; it gets rented out by whatever station wants to pay for it and is the only actual anchor desk with an actual (not fake background) of the US Capitol up PA Ave. Also, I have literally spent 3+ hours in the Pulitzer Prize photo exhibit watching the movie and the photos all cycle through. I'm captivated by art that can tell stories. I like stories; you might have noticed that :-) And I love the old photographs of what the streets in DC looked like during inauguration parades for different presidents up on the balcony; I love comparing old photos with the current areas side-by-side (I adore historical markers like that). I didn't sit through the 9-11 movie, because I cried enough just walking around the top of the tower and reading about the photographer, but maybe on my third or fourth visit I'll make it in there. I agree about the memorial, though I really liked that it was journalists of so many different nationalities and in different countries. Puts into perspective what people go through just so that we can be informed about current events around the world. The only thing I don't like about it is that the international newspaper lookup only has the big countries like China and Russia and India. I wish I could have looked up the daily headlines in a Papua New Guinea newspaper!

I find the place so very powerful in a lot of ways. It's neat to see how many different aspects of the first amendment rights it touches upon. And it also makes me smile to know how pissed the unabomber is that they have his cabin in the museum. LOL

[melydia.livejournal.com]

The room with all the drawers was really packed, so it wasn't easy to actually look at anything. I would have spent more time in there otherwise. I did get to see a photo of Nellie Bly, about whom I'm currently reading a book, so that was pretty nifty.

I didn't go out on the balcony because the wind was like -999 degrees and blowing at like a zillion knots. I'm sure it's lovely in better weather.

I browsed the Pulitzer photos but again, it was 99% tragedy.

I didn't see any news studio you could go inside.

I agree that it's very powerful. It was just more than I could take, I think.