Newseum - Washington D.C

After traveling through the books, I went to the place where I most liked in Washington, called Newseum. This museum is not free, but it was rewarding.

In the hall, there is an exhibit from all of the newspapers of the state capitals of the USA, and it is changed every day.

The first floor is very nice, a beautiful exhibition by Pulitzer. Wow! It is photojournalism, facts in pictures by Pulitzer. Every place in the Newseum I remembered my friends who will be journalists. I would like to explain my emotion with words, I will try.

The second floor shows how it to feels to be a journalist. It is an entertainment area. On that same floor, there is a store as everywhere in the USA. (Laugh)

The third floor is a memorial to honor journalists who died covering news. I didn’t find anyone from Brazil, but most of the journalists are from the Middle East. And in this same memorial, there is a special space to honor Edward R. Murrow who was an American journalist who covered the Second World War. He also pioneered the television news broadcast and he produced a lot of reports that helped to incriminate Joseph McCarthy who supported the Red Terror or “Witch Hunter”. It was a time when any person who was communist died.

This place is interesting because they honored the news and the journalists.

On that same floor, there is a studio to produce special videos and debates about the future of Journalism. These videos can be watched on thehome page: http://www.newseum.org/index.html

On the next floor there is a big memorial to Elvis Presley for his 75 years old. But on that same floor, what draws the most attention is a gallery about September 11^th, the unforgettable September 11^th that American people remember always. They included is part of the antenna which was on the top of the World Trade Center and a gallery with the first page of many newspapers of the world, in every language - Terror, War, Unbelievable, and Unthinkable – titles and pictures in different styles.

There are videos with families telling about their hurt.

On the fifth floor, there is the door which helped the FBI to prove guilt the Watergate case remembering when the ex-president Nixon fell in 1970 decade.

On that same floor, I could travel thru history by the news. People who worked on this research had to achieve each page of an important newspaper and they took care to put in one glass for us, the visitors.

Now about the last and sixth floor, the Covering of Katrina which is exciting. I remember when Katrina happened, as I saw on TV, but I had goose bumps when I saw a journalist covering it live and she was crying because of despair. On this floor, I could feel a little bit of this emotion.  

 I saw objects broken, dolls that stayed, but the owner died and the USA flag was stained. Around 200 people died.

I think that the museums remember for us good and bad experiences so we can try to change. If we remember bad facts, the people will remember the bad experience and they can do something better. We need to rescue the history and we cannot decide which museum is the place to deposit old things. 

I will never forget one sentence that I saw on the wall: To find news can be a hard job, telling the news is dangerous we need journalists who know how to do it. The journalists are writing a draft of history. Before a fact became history, it was news.

Now, I am finishing my travel to Washington D.C. I am sure, the nicest place that I have been so far now in the USA.

In front the newseum, there is a museum about Impressionism to Modernism with famous painters as Picasso, Monet and Renoir. But about this museum, I will tell about New York.