Newseum

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to visit the Newseum in Washington, D.C.  It is a museum that displays the history and evolution of journalism and news media from the books of news in the 1560s to the instantaneous news medias of today.  They had artifacts from important events, and original copies of newspapers and magazines from every time period since the dawn of print news. 

An exhibit that impacted me personally was the room full of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs.  Each of the photos there was an iconic photo from its year, and they were full of so much emotion.   Many of the photographs documented social injustices and awful occurrences that the world needed to know about.  If each of these photographs had been chosen for symbolizing so much, imagine a room full of them.  Everyone in the room was very sobered by what they saw, and many were crying.   It was a real eye-opener for me to see so much of history all at once, in gruesome, unforgiving detail.

The Newseum also had an exhibit on the Berlin Wall.  Videos about it were playing on the walls, people were scurrying around, the room was full of motion, but one thing was static.  Four tall, graffitied, concrete segments of the wall stood lined up on one side of the room.  They helped give an idea of what it would be like to be separated by the wall.  You couldn't see over it, there was only an expanse of wall that was almost impossible to breach.  This segment was from the free side, so that is why they were able to graffiti it.

The Newseum had many other exhibits showing important events in news and the spread of ideas and information.  I am really glad I got to go there.
-Kelly L.