A Day In The Lalz: Newseum

Here's the thing - I LOVE museums! I'm that person at a dinner party who knows all these random facts because I go to all types of museums and read everything. I enjoy reading and acquiring information on all sorts of topics. Sometimes my family is baffled by the information I possess - and by baffled I mean they question my sanity at times. I really feel that I would be a great contestant on Jeopardy because I know all these random and non-essential facts.

All that being said - let's talk about Newseum. What is it? A news museum. Back story - I read/listen/watch the news religiously. I find it upon myself to be fully informed of everything that is happening around the world. Therefore when I discovered that there was a museum dedicated to news history I was all in! I visited the Newseum with a friend last week.

The museum is huge and has a ton of great exhibits. We wanted to get the most of it therefore we got there bright and early at 9:30am! Below are some of the highlights and exhibits I found interesting!

Berlin Wall Gallery: This gallery contains the largest display of unaltered portions of the original wall outside of Germany.

FBI History & Espionage Journalism Exhibit: This exhibit is part of the ABC News Changing Exhibits Gallery. This exhibit gives you a glimpse into the relationship of the media & the FBI. On display was very interesting artifacts including the Unabomber’s cabin, Patty Hearst’s coat and gun, and engine parts and landing gear from the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center.

Today's Front Pages: This is a daily exhibit at the Newseum. Every day the Newseum prints and puts up the front page of a newspaper from each state and the District of Columbia. Naturally I got very excited to see Michigan's front page!

News Corporation News History Gallery: The fascinating part of this gallery was all the historic newspapers and magazines! The gallery had on display front page stories from each year since the early 1900s.

Robert H. and Clarice Smith Big Screen Theater: basically a TV enthusiasts dream! The big screen presents news broadcasts along a 100-foot-long video wall simultaneously! I tried to take a panoramic shot to capture how amazing this screen was!

Cox Enterprises First Amendment Gallery: this gallery explores the role of our First Amendment rights in the U.S. Constitution. The reason I found this exhibit fascinating was because when I was in law school I had to write a legal research appellate brief. The main issue of the brief was if the plaintiff's first amendment right was violated. All the cases that I cited in my brief were in this exhibit. I was literally running around with glee because I new exactly what all the cases were about! I was probably the only person who found this exhibit fascinating - but oh well.

Time Warner World News Gallery: this gallery exhibits a large map that illustrates the vast difference in press freedom around the world. As you can see, from the pictures below, not all countries experience freedom of press as we do in the US.