The Newseum is a news museum that covers a total of 250,000 square foot located at (555 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, DC). It is not only an artificial landmark but also as reference for any historical related research (Streitmatter 94). Newseum offers all its visitors a comprehensive history of events that took place during the past and its implications to the present happenings. The historical news records incorporate in the archives of the Newseum covers and blends news dating back 5 centuries ago to those of the contemporary times (Cotter 7). Apart from the historical significance of the news content contained in this museum, the seven levels of galleries in it has a lot of significance in the historical context of media freedom and its progressive chronology towards freedom. By focussing on this monumental building, this paper will profoundly explore any related literature to bring out the historical implications of this feature.
According to (Streitmatter 95), the Newusum chronicles major historical events of the globe and particularly those of America. Essentially, the profound events that have been chronicles by this monumental museum is the events that uncovered during the September 11th terrorist attack among many other major events that were recorded long before the media took a freedom stance as it is for today (Weisstein 474).
The newseum allows visitors to see enlarged images of 80 front pages of that day’s newspaper (Lai et al 9). In addition to this, the visitors can view 800 front page images of newspapers of different regions of the world on electronic devices that are in the newseum. These electronic devices can also display the history of Pennsylvania Avenue and the capitol building of the United States. These features inform the people on current news which is vital in understanding the evolution of media. It also gives a history of Pennsylvania Avenue.
In the newseum, there is a gallery of the Pulitzer Prize Photographs (Newton, Eric & Cyma 215). Large images of the winners of this price are displayed in this gallery and information about them can be found in an electronic database. More than 1000 photos and videos that can run more than 15 hours concerning the Pulitzer Prize winners are available in the newseum. There is also a gallery that has a lot of videos and images of the terrorist attack that took place on September 11th 2001. This was one of the events that hit the news headlines worldwide. Offering these gallery to the public promotes awareness of the history to the people.
In the newseum there is a section that gives the history of the Berlin Wall (Clinton 20). In this section a detailed 30 year history about the wall can be accessed. There is also another section that known as the journalist memorial. In this section, the names of journalist who die while performing their journalism duties are displayed on glass structures. In addition to these, there are sections that give detailed history the Hp technological devices, great family books, and ABC News. All these gallery are exhibited to promote people’s knowledge of the history (Kime 49).
Newseum features several galleries and exhibition that explore world news, historical news, photographical news, details of major event and how the media covered the new storyline in the world. For instance, the terrorist attack on September, 2011 and the fall, of the wall of Berlin in the in the Newseum exhibition is documented in then in the museum. There are all sources that the media used report the event such as newspapers, videos and audio recorded news that are available to visitors. Newseum museum has the largest galleries with a collection of more than 30,000 newspaper that covers events that happened more than five decades ago (Evelyn, et. al 54). There are five theatre that explore different news themes.
The First Amendment gallery forms five freedoms in the US in the modern times through interactive exhibit and artifacts present in then museum. Freedom that is established by these artifacts and exhibition include press, speech, religion, petition and assembly that is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Visitors watch new from more than 190 countries in the Time Warner news gallery (Ehrlich 7). They are able to compare major news storylines around the world. The major storyline in this gallery is the danger that is faced by news reporter while covering news events. Dramatic icon in this gallery show dangerous working condition that are encountered by the journalists
In a nutshell, it is evident and beyond any doubt that this monument is indeed a historical reference to many other things other than solely media development from a news perspective. Its exhibits, 15 major theatres and 14 major galleries profoundly offers one a clear impression on the historical unfolding’s that took place across the world over the past 5 centuries.
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