October 13-14, 2019
Entering the lobby of the museum, I stood in surprise at the sheer size of the building. Thank goodness that the museum was kind – and realistic – enough to sell tickets that were valid for two consecutive days. Carefully avoiding the enormous group of elementary students, we were ushered by the staff members to the first floor, below. From there, we would take an elevator up to the sixth floor and make our way, level by level, down to the second floor where the museum entrance was.
One of the first exhibits that greeted us was a section of the original Berlin Wall. It was… staggering to think about the depth and length of history that the wall had stood as a witness to. Graffiti absolutely covered the side of the wall that had faced West Berlin, whereas the other side was starkly blank. The exhibit also featured a genuine watchtower that was hollowed on the inside and the videos and descriptions on the sides of the exhibit showed both the contrast in life between the two Berlins and the effort of the East to reach the West.
We were still on the first floor – at the FBI exhibit – when we realized that two days or not, we needed to start rationing our time. Of course, we realized this after we had gone through the majority of the exhibit that was complete with a number of artifacts from FBI cases, including the truck that had nearly bombed Times Square, and video testimonials of both the FBI agents and criminals.
After we – rather reluctantly – dragged ourselves away from the FBI section, we took the elevator up to the top floor – floor 6. There was a terrace overlooking the historically central Pennsylvania Avenue that offered a beautiful view of the Capitol building. Cue, photo session!
On the same floor, there was an entire wall covered with front page newspapers from every country imaginable, as well as the fifty states. I had originally thought they were historic articles until I realized that every single newspaper was featuring today’s news – which meant that the museum updated the wall daily. It was incredible to see what each country – and state – considered to be their most important news of the day, as well as extremely artistic in the wide variety of languages that stared down from that wall.
The fifth floor’s main exhibit feared 500 years worth of significant news history. In a span of an hour, we went through 500 years of news history – and it was extremely interesting to see the shifts in peoples’ perceptions, as well as the sheer increase of news in recent decades. At this point, we stood up with cracking knees and hungry stomachs and decided to call it a day. There was still tomorrow left, after all.
When we came back, we went straight to the fourth floor. One enormous wall featured the 9/11 attack. The news articles from the day following the attack screamed “U.S. Attacked”, “Day of Terror”, “Evil Acts”. Photographs lined the smaller exhibits, starkly presenting the chaos and tragedy of the day. The photographs and videos also gave witness to the brave men and women who ran toward the site of the attack, rather than away – public servants, members of the police, firefighters, and even news reporters. The sheer terror on the faces of the people ensured that that day indeed lives in infamy. On September 11, 2001, I was two years old, completely oblivious to what had happened, and how drastically this day would impact both politics and foreign policy moving forward. My mom told me that, she too had been completely oblivious to what had happened, without access to a TV or radio – in an era before smartphones, and had taken me to the park. Seeing how deserted the park was, she had thought it was strange, but hadn’t thought much of it. Later that day, she received a frantic call from her family back in Korea that had seen on the news of the attack and was asking if we were alright. We were in Georgia, and nowhere near where the attacks had taken place, but the irony was hilarious: we, who were in the U.S. had remained blissfully ignorant of the tragedy of that day while the rest of the country – and the world – had reacted with utter shock and grief.
We made our way down to the third floor, where there was sober silence at the Journalists Memorial – dedicated to the thousands who have died reporting the news.
There was a large map featured on a wall that categorized the world’s press into three colors: green for free, yellow for partly free, and red for not free. The bold red that gazed back at me from this map was staggering – and saddening. It was eye-opening to consider that while in the U.S., the freedom of the press is considered obvious, a good portion of the world still remains under strict censorship. As privileged as I am to live in the U.S., the exhibit was a stark reminder of the long road ahead of us, as a global community, to ensure that everyone has access to free and accurate information.
The second floor may have been my favorite – if only for the fun interactive newsroom, where we could pretend to be a TV reporter. Our little performance was then presented on the TVs hanging from the ceiling, complete with a very official-looking news logo. It was strange to see how fidgety I was, but at the same time, I did a fairly decent job!
We finished off our Newseum experience by going through the Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery. Photo after photo, the gallery told the story of our history, of the triumphs and the tragedies of the modern age and it was reflective to see all of them, side by side.
From the many museums that I visited in Washington D.C., the Newseum was my favorite because of the rich story it told of the news, in its multi-faceted and interactive way. I was also extremely lucky to have gotten the chance to explore the museum so leisurely, as it is closing for relocation on December 31, 2019.