The Newseum, the world's only interactive museum of news, takes visitors behind the scenes to see and experience how and why news is made. At the Newseum, visitors can be television announcers or reporters; relive the great news stories of all time through multimedia exhibits, unique artifacts and news memorabilia; and see today's news as it happens on a block-long video news wall. Just across the Potomac River from Washington, the Newseum is located in Arlington, Va., two blocks from the Rosslyn Metro Station and minutes from the Iwo Jima Memorial and Arlington Cemetery. The Newseum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and is closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's days. Admission is free.
A visit to the Newseum is hands-on fun for everyone. Using touch-screen computer programs in the Interactive Newsroom, visitors can test their skills as investigative reporters, choose the next day's front page stories as newspaper managing editors, or go on the scene of breaking news as photojournalists. The Ethics Center lets visitors decide how they would deal with some of the tough ethical choices journalists encounter in the newsroom every day.
The News History Gallery traces the extraordinary journey news has made from ancient eras to today's global village and shows how news has evolved from spoken stories to a worldwide information explosion. Some of the greatest moments in history can be relived in each of the Newseum's four theaters through a variety of films and vintage newsreels.
The heart of the Newseum is a 126-foot-long Video News Wall, where visitors can experience breaking news as it happens and witness the instantaneous global reach of information made possible by new technologies. Below the video wall, a display of daily newspaper front pages from 50 states and many foreign countries shows how different newspapers around the world cover that day's top stories.
Special programs in the Broadcast Studio allow visitors to talk with professional journalistsabout the inside story of the news while experiencing the workings of a real broadcast studio. The News Byte Cafe offers visitors a bite to eat while they explore the Internet's many online news sources.
The $50 million, 72,000-square-foot museum, which opened in April 1997, is funded by The Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan, international foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people. The Newseum operates a photojournalism gallery, Newseum/NY, which is located in midtown Manhattan at 57th and Madison. The Newseum also operates a mobile exhibit, Newseum's NewsCapade with Al Neuharth, that takes some of the museum's most popular exhibits, videos and artifacts to locations across the country, and will visit each of the 50 states by the end of 2000.