Newseum opening

Washington is a city well-known for spin and displays of self-importance, but I don't believe I've ever seen such an enormous show of self-indulgent self-aggrandizement and self-congratulations than at the newly opened Newseum, a monument and self-funded commercial for the press.

Once a modest museum about the history of the press located in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, sponsors of the Newseum secured a lot of private contributions from the Freedom Forum (a free press, free speech group funded by wealthy publishing magnates) and several additional foundations started by wealthy publishers, allowing them to buy up a prime bit of real estate on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Capitol and next door to the Canadian Embassy. There they built a glitzy, modern, glass-walled, seven-story museum with an attached, ultra-luxury, apartment building and a high-end Wolfgang Puck restaurant. Their sixth floor terrace overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue has spectacular views of the Capitol, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, The Mall, and many of the office complexes along Pennsylvania.

Inside, the Newseum has an impressive collection of press memorabilia and historical artifacts, including hundreds of years' worth of newspapers, plus a growing collection of radio- and video clips. In fact, they could have opted to use their collections in a venue more suited to serious study of journalism, but they've gone the reality TV, ratings-driven, least-common denominator route to higher ratings and turned everything into a brief sound bite of sensationalism. They've also taken some historical artifacts from important world events that had little if anything to do with the press (other than later news coverage) and created big, fancy galleries around them, such as a series of panels from the Berlin Wall and a piece of wreckage from a television tower that once stood atop the World Trade Center. There's a lot of wasted space in the place, what with the enormous central atrium that runs the full height and width of the building, plus three museum shops vending souvenirs. A very large cafeteria space is in the basement level of the main building with Wolfgang Puck's influence (not to be confused with his restaurant, The Source, in the apartment tower section of the building) on the menu options and the high prices ($14 for a main course cafeteria entree is high in my opinion, and on the "cheap" end, I saw a dessicated hot dog for $4 that one could buy from a street vendor for $1.25). That's not to say that there aren't some good and some entertaining exhibits and things in the building. You just have to cut through the glitz and the propaganda to get there. I especially liked the exhibit with all of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs. And, it's possible to sit at some of the interactive booths looking at news clips and getting lost in exploration, forgetting about the time.

We did go to their "4-D Movie Experience." They use their big auditorium with the big screen, moving chairs, and 3-D imagery. It was fun, but, once again, it's a lot of flash with limited substance. There were some snippets of educational information offered by really bad actors, but it didn't go anywhere and it wasn't all tied together, but they furthered their theme of the gloriousness of the press and the fabulousness of journalists, and the special effects made it all very entertaining. Ask Robert about his experience with the rat.

My favorite thing was in the men's room. They had embedded a bunch of custom tiles into the walls that featured actual published newspaper "bloopers."

With all the opening crowds, we almost didn't get to go. Friday's opening day was free admission for everyone. The museum advertised all over the place, talking about their 9 to 6 hours, with last entry at 5. Lines, I hear, stretched all the way down to the Capitol. About 2 p.m., they decided they were at their capacity, and stopped the line to great complaint from people in line and more people arriving. I'd taken off early Friday afternoon to head over to see the place, arriving about 2:30 or 2:45, and I saw some of the disappointed and angry tourists. It didn't look like the museum staff was handling things well or compassionately at all. They were basically taking the attitude that they were a private museum and they didn't care if people had been in line for hours to see a museum advertised as open until 5. Then, somebody printed up a small stack of tickets for free admission on Saturday and staffers all around were telling people to go get a free ticket from the line formed for that purpose, but they quickly ran out, and once again, people were distressed. For a press museum, they sure mishandled their public relations on opening day. I wandered off to do other things in the neighborhood and just happened to make a return pass, only to find yet another line all the way down in front of the Canadian Embassy, and they had printed up a bunch of Saturday free tickets and were giving them away. So, I got back in line and managed to get Robert and I a couple of tickets (other people on Saturday were paying full ticket price of $20 per person). By the time I got my tickets, I noticed the line was still growing, extending behind me past the Canadian Embassy. Even though I had to make a second trip downtown, I think we were better off....Friday, the museum was jam packed, and on Saturday, we had room to move around and actually see and read exhibits.

Now, while I enjoyed my visit to the museum, I'm not so sure I'd have enjoyed it as much had I paid $20. I'm not sure what the deal is about the price......$12 would have been okay, maybe even as much as $18 (what they charge at the Spy Museum), but $20 just seemed way too much. They could hold their costs down if they'd trim their staff. We saw dozens and dozens of workers and security guards milling around all over the museum, and they didn't all look busy. I asked some if they were volunteers or employees, and they said employees. Hmm.

So, I took some pictures. So as not to bore people and use up all their bandwidth, I've put them in a Flickr photo album. Click here if you'd like to see my pictures.