In the final weeks of the semester, as busy as I was with school work, I still had to accept a couple of kind invitations to join students from Little Flower School on their annual class trips. Our pastor invited me to join the eighth grade class as he took them on their annual surprise graduation trip . . . this year to the Newseum, located just off the Mall, with fabulous views of the Capital:
The Newseum is a museum dedicated to the history of the free press, especially in the United States. It therefore documents the people and events of some of the biggest news stories of the last century, and the media that covered them. It also gives tribute to journalists who have been imprisoned or killed in the midst of their work, and calls attention to places where there is no freedom of the press.
One exhibit includes a section of the Berlin Wall - which not only serves as an artifact from a major news story of the twentieth century, but also helps highlight the lack of freedom that existed behind the Iron Curtain.
Another exhibit reproduces the office of Tim Russert, one of my favorite newsmen:
Finally, another exhibit includes the destroyed television antenna from the top of the World Trade Center towers. The wall behind the tower is covered with the front-pages of newspapers from around the world from the morning of September 12, 2001.
As you may be able to tell from the wall on the right, we were visiting the Newseum just days after the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan. The front pages of newspapers from around the world announcing this news were being projected onto a blank wall, adding a fitting final chapter to the exhibit.
(The quote in the title of this post is from Thomas Jefferson)
1 comment:
Love Tim Russert.
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