Newseum lives – sorta

I have visited Washington, DC, a couple of times. It has been the site of conferences I attend and we took my parents there because they wanted to visit the Capitol. There are many great attractions, but my favorite was not one maintained by the Government. The Newseum serves in recognition of the importance of the press in our democracy (freedom of the press is codified in the first amendment). I have written previously about the Newseum in recognition of its resources for educators.

The Newseum offers a display showing the front pages of multiple images of that day.

We happened to visit on the day in 2009 when the front pages all carried the news of Michael Jackson’s death. This was the paper we could locate from North Dakota. Cindy proposed that a great project for students would be to view how the same story was covered in different sources (the front pages are available online).

I remember taking this picture – it is part of the Berlin wall. The other exhibit that impressed me was the memorial to journalists who had died doing their jobs.

You may know that the Newseum was closed. Privately funded with the cost of rent in D.C., it could not meet the costs of maintaining the facility and staff. I generated this post because I read something about the Newseum and learned that it is still functional. The collections of the Newseum and some of the services are held by an organization called the Freedom Forum which is an organization championing first amendment rights. The organization hopes to be able to open a new Newseum if a less expensive and suitable site can be located. The resources created for teachers and classrooms are still available online and work for the educational mission is continuing.