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Video Blog: Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall

Freedom Forum media consultant Gene Mater talks about the Berlin Wall's history, what it represented and its ultimate demise.

Related links:
• 20 Years Ago: The Wall Comes Tumbling Down
• Berlin Wall Gallery

20 Years Ago: The Wall Comes Tumbling Down

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

It snaked through Berlin like a concrete python, the only barrier in history built to keep a nation's people locked inside.

For 28 years since 1961, the Berlin Wall — die Mauer — stood as a testament to the eternal struggle between open and closed societies. It was built because more than 3 million people fled communist East Germany after World War II. More than 200 East Germans died trying to cross it.

For all its might, the wall could not stop the flow of news into East Berlin from West German radio and television. In 1946, the United States launched Radio in the American Sector (RIAS), a popular radio station operated by Germans in West Berlin. People in East Berlin could receive the RIAS broadcasts, which became an important source of fact-based reports and fueled the quest for freedom.

The wall became a symbolic backdrop for dramatic statements by Western leaders — from President John F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a Berliner)," to President Ronald Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

In 1989, the Berlin Wall did come down, spurred on by the deep human yearning for freedom that had toppled communist regimes across Eastern Europe. On the night of Nov. 9, just as abruptly as they had built the wall in the early morning darkness of Aug. 13, 1961, East German authorities opened the border — and the door to the fall of tyranny.

Crowds flowed through the wall near the Brandenburg Gate. Champagne flowed, too. Easterners crowded onto the Kurfürstendamm, Berlin's main shopping and dining street.

Jubilant Germans literally chipped away at one of the world's largest symbols of oppression. Within a week, the Berlin Wall and the German Democratic Republic had crumbled.

The Newseum's Berlin Wall Gallery features one of the largest public displays of Berlin Wall sections outside of Germany. Each of the eight wall sections is approximately four feet wide and 12 feet tall, and weighs three tons. The 40-foot-tall watchtower that stood less than a mile from "Checkpoint Charlie," the best-known crossing between East and West Berlin, is also part of the exhibit.

Photojournalist Alexandra Avakian was in Berlin on assignment for Life magazine the night the Berlin Wall fell. Her images of the historic event are featured on the Newseum's 40-foot-by-22-foot high-definition media screen, located in The New York Times–Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News. Additional information on Avakian and her work can be found at www.fotoweekdc.org.

’69 ‘Miracle Mets’ Make World Series History

By Tom Turco, Web development director

1969 was a year of incredible news events: the first man walked on the moon, a music festival called Woodstock became a lasting cultural event, and the New York Mets — a hapless, if not outright incompetent, baseball team — pulled off an unbelievable World Series triumph to the amazement of baseball fans everywhere.

In a stunning series of victories, the “Miracle Mets” managed to capture the National League pennant and win the World Series, becoming the first expansion team to claim victory in the Fall Classic.

The Mets — short for Metropolitans — were regarded as ne’er-do-well upstarts, compared unfavorably to the legendary New York Yankees. The team was added to Major League Baseball during its 1962 expansion. With manager Casey Stengel at the helm, the perennial bottom feeders set the standard for modern-day losses during their first season with 120 — a dubious distinction that still endures. Subsequent seasons were not much better — until that golden summer of ’69.

Though the “lovable losers” had improved by the beginning of the 1969 season, by mid-August the third-place Mets were trailing the Chicago Cubs by nine games in the National League East. Then the team’s fortunes suddenly turned. They went on a tear, winning 39 of their last 50 games to capture the division. They finished with a regular-season record of 100-62.

But the best was yet to come.

The Mets swept “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron and the Atlanta Braves in the National League championship series. Next was the World Series, where the Mets faced a Baltimore Orioles lineup that featured larger-than-life legends Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson. The Mets had future stars on their roster — Donn Clendenon, Al Weis, Jerry Grote, Ed Kranepool, Bud Harrelson, Cleon Jones, Tommie Agee, Ron Swoboda and Tug McGraw — who came through in a big way.

The Mets lost Game One but won the next three. They entered Game Five with a chance to win it all at Shea Stadium. The Orioles took an early lead, but Clendenon crushed a two-run home run, and Weis launched a solo shot to tie it. The Mets pulled ahead in the eighth inning. Starter Jerry Koosman walked O’s slugger Frank Robinson at the top of the ninth and retired the next three hitters to cap an improbable World Series victory.

Pandemonium broke out when Jones caught a long fly for the final out. People literally ripped off pieces of Shea Stadium for souvenirs of the unlikely triumph. 

The press and their fans added the “Miracle” prefix to the team’s name and revived another nickname — the “Amazin’ Mets” — which Stengel reportedly had coined years earlier when they became infamous for their poor play.

The Mets came close to winning the World Series again several times before their 1986 victory against the Boston Red Sox. In 2009, the team opened the season in a new stadium, Citi Field, where they struggled, despite a talented lineup. In August, the ’69 team was honored in a ceremony at Citi Field. The memories of 1969 still linger.

Learn more about baseball’s winners and losers and other great sports news in the Newseum’s 25-minute documentary “Press Box: The History of Sports Reporting,” now playing in the Sports Theater. The News Corporation News History Gallery features historic front pages of notable sports events.

“Athlete”, a new exhibit featuring the photography of Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss Jr., is now open.

Remembering Jack Nelson

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Jack Nelson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and longtime Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, died October 21, 2009. He was 80.

Nelson, a native of Alabama, represented a distinguished line of southern reporters and editors who bravely exposed inequities in the South.

He joined the Times in 1965 and opened the California newspaper's first southern news bureau in Atlanta. The Times saw the bureau as a way to bring to its readers "first-hand the meaningful and dramatic news story of the South," such as the struggle for civil rights.

Nelson left Atlanta in 1970 to work in the Times's Washington bureau. He became bureau chief in 1975. In Washington, Nelson shaped the bureau into one of the capital's most influential. In 1996, he became chief Washington correspondent, a position he held until his retirement in 2002.

Prior to the Times, Nelson had been an investigative reporter for the Atlanta Constitution since 1952, where he won the Pulitzer in 1960 for his series of articles on the irregularities at mental institutions in Georgia. He also covered the volatile integration issue in Little Rock, Ark., and racial strife in Mississippi and other parts of the South.

"Journalists monitoring the operations of government are only doing what most other citizens would do for themselves if they had the time," he said.

In 1953, Nelson was assaulted by an angry mob in Hinesville, Ga., after his exposé of town corruption led to 44 grand jury indictments.

Nelson began his career right out of high school in 1947 at Mississippi's Biloxi Daily Herald. He attended Georgia State College and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He authored and co-authored five books, including "Terror in the Night: The Klan's Campaign Against the Jews," published in 1993.

Related link: Inside Media with Jack Nelson

Walter Iooss's Diaries

Take a video tour through one of sports photographer Walter Iooss's diaries and hear him describe how he creates his unique graphic journals.

Iooss began documenting his career in diaries in 1981. His early journals were simple, but over the years he began mixing different media to create collages that combine his photographs with personal thoughts and quirky clippings from newspapers and magazines.

Several of Iooss's favorite diaries, including this 2002 journal, can be seen in the exhibit "Athlete: The Sports Illustrated Photography of Walter Iooss," on display at the Newseum through Dec. 31, 2009.

Related Exhibit: Athlete: The Sports Illustrated Photography of Walter Iooss

News Ethics in the Digital World

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

At its first national meeting in 1923, the American Society of Newspaper Editors adopted guidelines for journalists that covered responsibility, independence, truth and accuracy, impartiality, fair play and decency.

Called the "Canons of Journalism," later renamed the "Statement of Principles," the guidelines were meant to "preserve, protect and strengthen the bond of trust and respect between American journalists and the American people."

In April 2009, ASNE dropped "newspaper" from its name to become the American Society of News Editors, which includes editors who direct news content at wire services and newspaper-affiliated Web sites.

No national code of ethics for journalism exists, but most news organizations have written their own guidelines.

Journalism in the 21st century requires a new set of ethics tailored to the digital world. As reporters write their own blogs and increasingly incorporate Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks into their personal and professional lives, news organizations are beginning to define the limits on the use of social tools.

The Washington Post released new guidelines Sept. 28, 2009, concerning social networking, after one of its top editors closed his Twitter account when his personal "tweets" raised conflict-of-interest questions.

"What you do on social networks should be presumed to be publicly available to anyone, even if you have created a private account," the new guidelines state. "Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything — including photographs or video — that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility."

A look at the ethics guidelines at some of the nation's newspapers reveal how much face time Facebook, Twitter and blogs are allowed in news content.

The Wall Street Journal: "Consult your editor before 'connecting' to or 'friending' any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources. Openly 'friending' sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex. … Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter. Don't Tweet on personal matters if it's clear that you're a Dow Jones employee. Common sense should prevail, but if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending."

The New York Times: "Outsiders can read your Facebook page, and … personal blogs and 'tweets' represent you to the outside world just as much as an 800-word article does. … Remember that although you might get useful leads by joining a group on one of these sites, it will appear on your page, connoting that you 'joined' it — potentially complicated if it is a political group, or a controversial group."

Los Angeles Times: "Assume that your professional life and your personal life merge online regardless of your care in separating them. … Assume that everything you write or receive on a social media site is public and knowable to everyone with access to a computer. …You must identify yourself as an LAT employee online if you would do so in a similar situation offline. Make sure that people you are communicating with understand how you plan to use the information."

The Philadelphia Inquirer: "Everyone should keep in mind that the Internet is a public forum. Therefore, people mentioning their Inquirer affiliation should be very careful not to express opinions that would compromise their impartiality in covering the news."

Houston Chronicle: "Take care in deciding to initiate or contribute to a Web log. … Avoid posting anything on the Internet that could call into question your objectivity as a journalist or reflect unfavorably upon the Chronicle."

The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa): "You will find valuable information on social networks, but it won't always be easily distinguished from the lies, mischief and misinformation. Use the social network as a starting point in your reporting, but be sure to verify and attribute. … If you are blogging or Twittering through your reporting process, be careful not to write about matters you might later need to discuss with editors.

Orlando Sentinel (Florida): "Staffers who operate their own Web sites or publish personal blogs must not post information on topics they cover for the Sentinel. They also should be mindful that their personal postings can affect their credibility as journalists and, by extension, the Sentinel's credibility as a news organization. Thus, they should avoid postings that reveal personal biases or that otherwise compromise their professionalism."

Exhibits on ethics, credibility and digital news reporting are on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery, the Bancroft Family Ethics Center and the Digital News Gallery located in the Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery.

Remembering William Safire

By John Maynard, Newseum exhibits writer

William Safire, a former speechwriter for President Richard M. Nixon and a renowned wordsmith who became a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, died Sept. 27. He was 79.

For the past 30 years, Safire wrote the popular "On Language" column for The New York Times Magazine, which wittily explored the origins and meanings of words and highlighted abuses of the English language.

From 1973 to 2005, he wrote the "Essay" column twice a week for the op-ed page of the Times. The column offered a conservative perspective on events, but Safire was not afraid to go after those on the right when he disagreed with them.

"I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian," Safire told The Washington Post in 2004. "The wonderful thing about being a New York Times columnist is that it’s like a Supreme Court appointment — they're stuck with you for a long time."

As a speechwriter, he famously coined the phrases "nattering nabobs of negativism" and "hysterical hypochondriacs" used by then-Vice President Spiro Agnew to describe critics of the Vietnam War.

Safire won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1978 for a series of columns questioning the financial dealings of then-President Jimmy Carter’s budget director Bert Lance, who resigned and later was acquitted by a federal jury.

Walter Iooss Interview

Legendary Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss Jr. talks with the Newseum about how several of his iconic images came about.

Related Exhibit: Athlete: The Sports Illustrated Photography of Walter Iooss

Remembering Max Page

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

The Newseum and Freedom Forum mourn the loss of Max C. Page, deputy director and vice president of the Newseum. Page died Sept. 15, 2009, his 60th birthday.

For 17 years, Page assisted in the management of the Newseum and its staff. During the building phase of the new Newseum, which opened in Washington, D.C., in April 2008, Page headed up the day-to-day management of design and construction.

"The Newseum is Max’s monument," said Charles L. Overby, chief executive officer of the Freedom Forum, Newseum and Diversity Institute. "He was the overseer of this very complex project and knew the nooks and crannies of our building better than anybody else. He brought the tenaciousness of a reporter and the sharp eye of an editor to the project. We will miss Max, but his work will be seen and appreciated for many years to come."

Page, a native of Wichita, Kan., began his career at the Freedom Forum — the major funder of the operations of the Newseum — in 1992 as executive producer in the broadcasting department. He played a major role in the development of the 126-foot-long Video News Wall in the original Newseum.

Before joining the Freedom Forum, Page spent several years at Gannett Co. Inc. as an executive producer for Gannett Television and a bureau chief and news director of Gannett News Service Television. He also was a broadcast executive for WXIA-TV in Atlanta, WNEP-TV in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and WFAA-TV in Dallas.

"Max went about his work and his life with a terse resolve to do right and do well. And he succeeded," said Joe Urschel, Newseum executive director and senior vice president. "Never one to seek glory or praise, he was always quick to lavish it on others. We will all miss his no-nonsense style and his unyielding sense of humor."

Page is survived by his wife of 37 years, Katy, daughters Kristen, Jamie and Maggie, and a grandson, Jackson.

'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' in Newseum's Forecast

WASHINGTON — On Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009, at 10:30 a.m., the Newseum hosts a special screening of Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation's "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs."

The 3-D movie, inspired by the beloved children's book of the same title, focuses on a town where food falls from the sky like rain.

The screening will be held in the state-of-the-art Walter and Leonore Annenberg Theater. The largest of the Newseum's 15 theaters, the Annenberg Theater features a 60-foot-wide screen.

After the movie, enjoy a savory buffet of traditional marinara, sweet and sour and Swedish meatballs in the Food Section Cafe on the Concourse level. Many other treats also are available for purchase from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Doors open at 9 a.m. Seating is on a space-available basis and is free with paid Newseum admission. Plan your visit and buy your ticket now.

PODCAST: "This Just In!"

Radio Series Explores News and People Behind the Headlines

Aug. 23, 2009 - Guest: Nick Clooney
Veteran journalist and author Nick Clooney kicked off the series with a discussion on his career in television news that spans more than 50 years. Clooney is the Newseum and American University School of Communication distinguished journalist-in-residence and host of the popular "Reel Journalism" film series. (Duration 00:52:23)

 (47.9 MB)

"This Just In!" is produced by The George Washington University Global Media Institute and the Newseum. The one-hour weekly series, hosted by veteran CBS Radio Network News anchor Sam Litzinger, is broadcast nationally each Sunday at 11 a.m. ET on Sirius-XM Satellite Radio. Listeners in Washington, D.C., can hear the program on Federal News Radio (1500 FM) every Sunday at 7 p.m. ET.

Newseum Voted Best in D.C. in Nickelodeon's 2009 Parents' Picks Awards

It's official! The Newseum has won the award for Best Museum in Washington, D.C., in Nickelodeon's 2009 Parents' Pick Awards. The Newseum is honored as the spot that "exhibits the coolest kid-friendly culture in town."

One of seven stellar nominees, the Newseum earned this accolade when parents nationwide voted online for their favorite businesses and local resources. Winners were selected from more than 10,000 nominees in 52 major U.S. cities. Awards ranged from "Best Museum for Families," to "Best Toy Stores," to "Best Playground."

All Parents' Picks businesses are nominated based on recommendations from Nickelodeon's local city editors who live and work in the cities they cover, in conjunction with the sites' user feedback. Nickelodeon's ParentsConnect Web site draws about 2 million unique visitors each month, according to Nickelodeon. User votes ultimately determined the winning venues in 30 different categories.

So bring the entire family to visit seven levels of fun, exciting, interactive galleries, exhibits and theaters. Buy your ticket now, or get a great value with a Newseum annual membership that provides insider access and key benefits.

Ashley Cleveland Interview: Origins of Gospel Music

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Three-time Grammy Award-winning gospel rock artist Ashley Cleveland sat down with the Newseum's Ken Paulson and Gene Policinski at the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn., Aug. 21 to talk about her concert at the Newseum on Oct. 18, 2009.

Ashley Cleveland Interview: Touching Hearts

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Three-time Grammy Award-winning gospel rock artist Ashley Cleveland sat down with the Newseum's Ken Paulson and Gene Policinski at the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn., Aug. 21 to talk about her concert at the Newseum on Oct. 18, 2009.

Ashley Cleveland Interview: Performing at the Newseum

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Three-time Grammy Award-winning gospel rock artist Ashley Cleveland sat down with the Newseum's Ken Paulson and Gene Policinski at the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn., Aug. 21 to talk about her concert at the Newseum on Oct. 18, 2009.

Remembering Don Hewitt

Veteran CBS Newsman Don Hewitt died of pancreatic cancer Aug. 19, 2009, at his Bridgehampton, N.Y., home. He was 86.

Hewitt was the founder and executive producer of "60 Minutes," the most successful and most imitated newsmagazine in television history. He tells of one remarkable milestone in a Newseum interview from Oct. 26, 2004.

Related obituary

Remembering Don Hewitt

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Don Hewitt, the veteran CBS director and producer who once said he would like to die at his desk, died Aug. 19, 2009. He was 86.

For more than 60 years, Hewitt was an innovator in television news.

Long before he was the founder and executive producer of "60 Minutes," the most successful and most imitated newsmagazine in television history, he was associate director of the first evening news program on CBS in 1948: a 15-minute program called "Douglas Edwards with the News."

In 1960, Hewitt directed the first televised presidential debates in U.S. history. The debates, between vice president Richard M. Nixon and Sen. John F. Kennedy, have been called instrumental in Kennedy winning the presidency.

"I remember they looked like they were mismatched. Jack Kennedy looked like some Harvard undergrad, tan, fit, walked into that studio like he owned the world," Hewitt recalled. "Richard Nixon had a staphylococcus infection, banged his knee on the car door when he got out. Looked like death warmed over. … We offered to put some makeup on [Nixon], but he said no, because he didn't want people to say he used makeup and Kennedy didn't. … When the first debate was over, I said, ‘My God, we don't have to wait for election night.’ I said, ‘I just produced a television show that elected a president of the United States.’"

But the show Hewitt was most proud of and to which he will be forever linked is "60 Minutes." The program, Hewitt’s alternative to the impersonal news broadcast, was first broadcast in 1968 with Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner as co-hosts. It entered the Top Ten in the Nielsen ratings in 1978, and has maintained a spot in the Top 20 for more than 30 years.

One of the scripts from the inaugural "60 Minutes" broadcast is on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery, as well as an exhibit on Hewitt’s life and career.

Hewitt retired as executive producer of "60 Minutes" in 2004 but maintained an advisory role as executive producer at the network.

Related video

Political Columnist Robert Novak Dies

By Emily Hedges, Newseum assistant editor

Robert Novak, who died Aug. 18, wrote one of America’s longest-running newspaper political columns but was best known for his combative style on CNN’s "Crossfire," "The Capital Gang" and "Evans, Novak, Hunt and Shields."

Novak was a stronghold in political journalism for 45 years. "Inside Report," the syndicated column he started with Rowland Evans in 1963, continued after Evans’s 1993 retirement. Novak retired from writing the column full time in August 2008 after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Only the political columns of William F. Buckley and David Lawrence had longer runs than Novak’s. Novak worked for CNN for 25 years and left to do commentary for Fox News in 2006.

Washington Post and Newsweek reporter John J. Lindsay dubbed his pal Novak the "Prince of Darkness" because of his "grim-visaged demeanor" and "unsmiling pessimism about the prospects for America and Western civilization." The moniker was well known in Washington, and Novak used the title for his 2007 autobiography.

On July 14, 2003, Novak divulged the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame in a column about her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. The Justice Department requested Novak’s sources, which he refused, though he later revealed two of his sources — with their approval — in front of a grand jury.

The fallout from the column and the ensuing headlines led to the indictment and conviction of White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Novak was 78.

Novak briefly discusses freedom of the press in a video shown in the Newseum’s Cox Enterprises First Amendment Gallery.

You Never Know Who You’ll See at the Newseum

A steady parade of famous faces often can be seen visiting the Newseum or attending events and programs. Take a look at a few of the celebrities who have recently walked through our doors.

35 Years Ago: Watergate Is Nixon's Waterloo

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

At noon on Aug. 9, 1974, Richard M. Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign the office.

Three months earlier, the House Judiciary Committee had begun hearings to impeach the 37th president, who was accused of covering up his role in the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at Washington’s Watergate hotel and office complex.

The Watergate scandal — an epic tale of crime and cover-up at the highest levels of the U.S. government — pitted The Washington Post against the leader of the free world. The Post’s stories ultimately brought in the rest of the news media. Congress and the courts also investigated.

Throughout the ordeal, Nixon repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or any knowledge of the burglary.

"People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook," he said during a 1973 televised question-and-answer session with Associated Press managing editors. "Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got."

The "smoking gun" that destroyed Nixon’s presidency was a secret tape recording Nixon released to the special prosecutor four days before his resignation. The tape revealed that Nixon not only knew of the cover-up from the beginning but tried to use the FBI to stop the investigation.

"Nixon Resigns," screamed the Aug. 9, 1974, edition of The Washington Post. The Post, whose reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein doggedly uncovered the Watergate crime, earned the Pulitzer Prize for public service for its Watergate coverage.

On Sept. 8, 1974, President Gerald R. Ford granted Nixon a full and absolute pardon for any federal crimes he may have committed in office.

The name Watergate started a worldwide trend of attaching the suffix "-gate" to any story that hinted of scandal.

Watch video clips of Bernstein and Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. discussing the film "All the President’s Men," which was screened March 16 at the Newseum as part of its "Reel Journalism" film series.

The taped door that led to the Watergate investigation and Woodward and Bernstein’s notes are on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

Journalists Back in the USA

By Patty Rhule, Newseum projects editor

Two American journalists jailed in North Korea since March are back home in California after former President Bill Clinton secured their release.

Clinton went to Pyongyang Aug. 4 and met with leader Kim Jong Il, who pardoned reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee in a surprise move. Korean news agency KCNA called it a "special pardon."

Ling and Lee were arrested near the Chinese border March 17 and charged with entering North Korea illegally and committing hostile acts. In June, they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor.

The reporters were reportedly pursuing a story for the San Francisco–based news company Current TV about North Koreans leaving the country. North Korea places severe restrictions on its own journalists, and the country ranks last in the annual survey of worldwide press freedom published by Freedom House, an independent private organization that supports the expansion of democracy and freedom in the world.

Clinton made the trip to North Korea with the knowledge of President Barack Obama.

"This has been a long and complex process, given the situation on the Korean peninsula," said Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "We thank former President Clinton for his intervention, and we are grateful that the North Korean authorities have responded to appeals for clemency."

For more information on press freedom around the world and the risks journalists take to report the news, visit the Newseum’s Time Warner World News Gallery.

'First Dogs' Gone, But Not for Long

By Bridget Gutierrez, Newseum exhibits writer

The Newseum’s popular exhibit, "First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Pets," has temporarily closed to make way for the new exhibit, "Woodstock at 40: The Rise of Music Journalism." The photographs of nearly two dozen U.S. presidents and their furry friends — including current first dog, Bo Obama — will return to the Newseum on Nov. 1, 2009.

President Barack Obama’s Portuguese water dog was a media sensation even before he moved into the White House this past spring. In the museum’s special "First Dogs" popularity poll, Bo earned 32 percent of the 26,830 votes cast, making him America’s "Top First Dog" among Newseum visitors.

With 8,582 votes, Bo bested Bill Clinton’s Labrador retriever, Buddy; George H.W. Bush’s English Springer spaniel, Millie; Richard Nixon’s cocker spaniel, Checkers; Lyndon B. Johnson’s beagles, Him and Her; and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Scottish terrier, Fala.

Video Blog: Installing the 'Woodstock at 40' Exhibit

Go behind the scenes with the Newseum’s curatorial staff as they install the new exhibit, "Woodstock at 40: The Rise of Music Journalism," which will be on display through Dec. 31, 2009.

Woodstock Still Rocks at 40

By Tom Turco, Newseum Web director

Forty years ago in the upstate New York town of Bethel, about half a million people gathered for three days of peace, love and music at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. And everything was groovy, baby.

Bethel is located roughly 50 miles from the hamlet named Woodstock, where the concert originally was to be held. When the agreement to hold the gathering in Woodstock fell through, Michael Lang, one of the concert’s creators, cut an impromptu deal with dairy-farm owner Max Yasgur for the large swath of land nestled in the Catskill Mountains. The organizers decided to stick with the Woodstock name.

It turned out to be quite a show. Little did the organizers know that they would attract more than twice the expected attendance, the infrastructure would be insufficient to handle the crowd, and the concert would turn into a free event that lasted for several days.

Nearly half a century later, Woodstock has achieved a mythical stature that many musical gatherings have tried to re-create but have been unable to truly achieve. Woodstock tapped the zeitgeist in a unique way, and the ensuing legend has taken on a life of its own.

Woodstock was the embodiment of the counterculture movement, and is one of the "50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll," according to Rolling Stone magazine. At its core were the music and the fans. A dazzling array of legendary bands were showcased, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Grateful Dead, Richie Havens, Santana, The Band, John Sebastian, Sly and the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

"It was unpredictable, spontaneous and organic," says USA Today rock music critic Edna Gundersen. "Music was the siren call to all of these young people. They took care of themselves, focused on the music and did so with joy and optimism. Against all odds, it succeeded as a magical event of peace and love and free expression."

It also was a turning point for music journalism, particularly for rock music. What had previously been relegated to underground publications or buried as a random curiosity in the dailies was now vaulted into the mainstream. The youth movement, rock music and all that went along with them were now front and center, demanding to be heard. Coverage of this demographic became not only a legitimate beat but also a smart market to cultivate.

The mostly local media coverage of Woodstock focused largely on the traffic, nudity, drugs, rain, mud and the hippie subculture. Former New York Times reporter Barnard Collier covered the event, despite his editors’ misgivings about the story. They wanted Collier to focus on the negatives. But he resisted, stood his ground and gained the support of the top editor at the Times, Scotty Reston.

"There were lots of colors and wildly dressed people," Collier said. "The story just got better and better. The people were beautiful. Yes, there was nudity, but it was natural. It was certainly the best story I have ever done, and I’ve done quite a few. It was all a beautiful accident."

"Woodstock at 40," the Newseum’s newest exhibit, is on display through Dec. 31, 2009.

Collier will discuss Woodstock on "Inside Media" Aug. 15.

Watch great video clips of Lang giving insights about how Woodstock came together.

New Exhibit Takes Stock of Woodstock

WASHINGTON — Rolling Stone magazine called the Woodstock Music and Art Fair "the most famous event in rock history."

What started as a festival of music, peace and love in August 1969 became a mammoth gathering "half a million strong," as Joni Mitchell later sang.

But Woodstock was more than that. It marked a moment when the news media first recognized music and entertainment as a cultural and commercial force.

The Newseum’s new exhibit, "Woodstock at 40: The Rise of Music Journalism," opens Aug. 1, 2009, and features rarely seen photographs and artifacts from the historic music event. Included are the images and stories of photographers Dan Garson, Henry Diltz and Mark Goff, along with an original Woodstock press pass, press kit and festival tickets; an authentic Woodstock poster from concert promoter Michael Lang’s personal collection; and the original working list of musicians and how much they were paid.

Woodstock’s impact on the press will also be explored in "Woodstock" — a Newseum-produced video featuring rare archival footage and musical performances — that will be shown on the 90-foot video wall in the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Big Screen Theater. USA Today’s Edna Gundersen, Barnard Collier of The New York Times and Jan Hodenfield of Rolling Stone explain the enduring effect Woodstock had on music reporting.

Photographs taken by Garson — a teenager who obtained a coveted press pass to cover Woodstock for his high school newspaper — are being exhibited for the first time, along with his camera and reporter’s notes.

 "The people were something else," Garson wrote about Woodstock. "Everyone was friendly and mostly cheerful, whether fully clothed or not." Garson died of cancer in 1992.

Diltz, the official Woodstock photographer, was a rising music photographer in Los Angeles when Woodstock promoter Michael Lang sent him a plane ticket and $500 to document the music festival. After Jimi Hendrix’s festival-ending performance, Diltz headed to Life magazine’s New York offices, where editors were planning a special issue on Woodstock. Life gave three of his photographs — of singers Grace Slick, David Crosby and Sly Stone — full-page treatment. Diltz went on to make a career photographing rock ‘n’ roll.

Goff covered Woodstock as a young reporter for Kaleidoscope, a Milwaukee-based alternative newspaper. From a small press pit just below the stage, Goff snapped close-up photos of musicians, including Joan Baez, Ravi Shankar and Sly Stone. His favorite memory of Woodstock is the spirit of the crowd.

 "It really was peace, love and music," Goff said. "People were dancing in the rain and dancing in the mud."

"Woodstock at 40" will be on display through Dec. 31, 2009.

Related story: Woodstock Still Rocks at 40

This exhibit was made possible through the generous cooperation of Rona Elliot and Genesis Publications, publisher of "Woodstock Experience," along with Woodstock executive producer Michael Lang, Brad LeMee and the family of Dan Garson, and Henry Diltz and Mark Goff.

Google Me to the Moon

WASHINGTON — To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic lunar landing on July 20, 1969, the Newseum was the official launchpad on July 20, 2009, for a return trip to the moon — courtesy of Google.

Google executives used the Newseum’s 40-foot-by-22-foot media screen to demonstrate "Moon in Google Earth," new software developed in partnership with NASA that allows users to visit from their desktops all six Apollo missions through an interactive, 3-D map of the lunar surface.

Digital images pinpoint landing sites and surrounding terrain, as well as various equipment and objects — called "human artifacts" — that were left on the moon by the Soviet Union, China, Japan, India and the European Union. Apollo astronauts offer guided tours of their missions through high-definition video.

The software, which took three years to complete, "can do everything except find your house" on the moon, said Michael Weiss-Malik, product manager for "Moon in Google Earth," who demonstrated the free tool.

Four interactive pods were set up in the Newseum lobby to give visitors a chance to test the software on their own.

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, said that while revisiting the moon is important, the country should now aim for Mars.

"We are looking and analyzing with a fine-tooth comb things of the past," he said. "We have to inspire the young people of today to look to 2031, when we land on Mars."

Aldrin reemphasized his point during a standing-room-only special program, "The Apollo Legacy: The Moon and Beyond," that was held in the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Theater.

Veteran journalist Nick Clooney moderated a panel discussion with Aldrin, Charlie Duke of Apollo 16, John Grunsfeld, of the recent Hubble mission, and Goddard Space Flight Center deputy director Laurie Leshin. Remote hookups allowed students at science centers and museums in New York, Boston, Chicago, Denver and St. Louis to ask the panelists questions about space exploration.

"Going back into deep space kindles the human spirit," said Duke, the 10th person to walk on the moon who spent 71 hours on the lunar surface. "I hope I’m around to see those first footprints on Mars," he said

Watch highlights from the "Moon in Google Earth" press conference July 20 at the Newseum.

Related video: Moonstruck at the Newseum

Newseum is Moonstruck on Apollo 11’s 40th Anniversary

The Newseum celebrates the 40th anniversary July 20 of the historic Apollo 11 mission when commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first two humans to walk on the moon. The Newseum’s Frank Bond chats with visitors, provides a peek at some of the special events and captures footage of Aldrin’s arrival at the Newseum.

Browse our Apollo Anniversary package that is filled with online-only features and fascinating details about the mission.

Watch highlights from the “Moon in Google Earth” press conference July 20 at the Newseum.

Remembering Walter Cronkite

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

CBS News legend Walter Cronkite, once called "the most trusted man in America," died Friday, July 17. He was 92.

In an age when a growing number of viewers now turn to comedy TV shows for "fake" news, Cronkite — "Uncle Walter" to his loyal fans — was the real deal.

He was born on Nov. 4, 1916, in St. Joseph, Mo., and raised in Houston, Texas. His interest in journalism began in high school, where he worked for the school newspaper. He started his journalism career as a nonpaid campus correspondent for The Houston Post. Later, working for United Press, he was among the more than 1,600 U.S. journalists who covered World War II from start to finish.

In 1950, Cronkite was hired by CBS News. In 1962, he became anchor of the "CBS Evening News." The following year, the program, renamed the "CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite, was expanded from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. Using his signature sign-off — "And that’s the way it is" — Cronkite shepherded the nation through nearly every significant news event of our time.

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, it was Cronkite’s emotional announcement of the president’s death that became television’s lasting image of the tragedy.

After visiting Southeast Asia in 1968 to learn firsthand what was going on in the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam, he later declared in a rare editorial that the United States should negotiate a way out of the war. President Lyndon B. Johnson understood the impact of Cronkite’s views.

"If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America," he said.

Said Cronkite: "It was time for me to cash in on all this trust people say they have for me."

When Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon, Cronkite giddily declared on air: "There’s a foot on the moon. … Look at those pictures. Wow!"

Cronkite retired from CBS in 1981. Perhaps expressing the sentiments of millions of TV viewers at the time, a T-shirt worn by a fan in Los Angeles exclaimed, "Oh my God, what are we going to do without Walter Cronkite?"

Cronkite was a frequent participant in Newseum programs. His contributions to journalism are explored in these Newseum galleries:

• • A special video of Cronkite is featured on the giant screen in the New York Times–Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News.
• • The News Corporation News History Gallery features exhibits on Cronkite’s life and career.
• • The Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery offers video excerpts of Cronkite’s coverage of the space race, President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the historic Apollo 11 moon landing.

Related Video:

• • Walter Cronkite: On JFK's Assassination
• • Walter Cronkite: On Network News
• • Walter Cronkite: On His Signature Sign-off
• • Walter Cronkite Remembers His Tet Offensive Editorial

NASA Releases Restored Apollo 11 Video at the Newseum

Watch Video:
• • Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong descends for first steps on moon.
• • Lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin takes his first lunar steps.
• • Armstrong reads the plaque that was left on the moon.
• • The astronauts raise the American flag on the moon.

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

WASHINGTON — To mark the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic walk on the moon, NASA released newly restored video of the historic feat at a press conference July 16 at the Newseum.

Four scenes — of Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong descending the lunar module to take the first steps on the moon; lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin taking his first lunar steps; Armstrong reading the plaque left on the moon; and the astronauts raising the flag on the moon — showed the comparison of the original grainy images and the new improved versions.

After an extensive three-year global search for the original footage — a search that included Stan Lebar, one of the designers of the camera used to record the images on the moon — NASA discovered that the tapes had most likely been permanently erased and recycled to record other data.

The restored images were culled from a variety of sources, including CBS News Archives, tapes recorded from NASA facilities in Sydney, Australia, and NASA kinescopes that had not been viewed for 36 years.

Richard Nafzger, a NASA engineer who oversaw TV processing at the ground tracking sites during Apollo 11, said the new images were a partial restoration and were the digital enhancement of the best available TV footage from July 1969. The final results will be released in September.

Lowry Digital, a Burbank, Calif., company that has restored more than 400 classic films, including "Casablanca" and "Star Wars," was contracted by NASA to restore the footage. The company has a history with NASA — its founder, John Lowry, invented technology called "video noise reduction" that was applied to the Apollo 16 and 17 missions.

Mike Inchalik, Lowry’s president, called the enhancement project "a bit of closure for us." Inchalik said the technology used to enhance the footage "puts quality of the image first."

Inchalik and Nafzger dismissed concerns that Lowry’s Hollywood connection would fuel conspiracy theories.

"We’re a restoration house," Inchalik said. "We’re very careful in what we fix and what not to fix. We’re being extremely cautious."

Nafzger emphasized that the restored video were of images already viewed by the public and praised Lowry’s past relationship with NASA.

"This company is restoring historic video. There couldn’t be a more perfect match," he said.

Please check out more great content and details for Newseum's Apollo Family Weekend.

For more information on the restoration scenes, visit www.nasa.gov.

NASA Releases Restored Apollo 11 Video at the Newseum

Watch Video:
• • Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong descends for first steps on moon.
• • Lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin takes his first lunar steps.
• • Armstrong reads the plaque that was left on the moon.
• • The astronauts raise the American flag on the moon.

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

WASHINGTON — To mark the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic walk on the moon, NASA released newly restored video of the historic feat at a press conference July 16 at the Newseum.

Four scenes — of Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong descending the lunar module to take the first steps on the moon; lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin taking his first lunar steps; Armstrong reading the plaque left on the moon; and the astronauts raising the flag on the moon — showed the comparison of the original grainy images and the new improved versions.

After an extensive three-year global search for the original footage — a search that included Stan Lebar, one of the designers of the camera used to record the images on the moon — NASA discovered that the tapes had most likely been permanently erased and recycled to record other data.

The restored images were culled from a variety of sources, including CBS News Archives, tapes recorded from NASA facilities in Sydney, Australia, and NASA kinescopes that had not been viewed for 36 years.

Richard Nafzger, a NASA engineer who oversaw TV processing at the ground tracking sites during Apollo 11, said the new images were a partial restoration and were the digital enhancement of the best available TV footage from July 1969. The final results will be released in September.

Lowry Digital, a Burbank, Calif., company that has restored more than 400 classic films, including "Casablanca" and "Star Wars," was contracted by NASA to restore the footage. The company has a history with NASA — its founder, John Lowry, invented technology called "video noise reduction" that was applied to the Apollo 16 and 17 missions.

Mike Inchalik, Lowry’s president, called the enhancement project "a bit of closure for us." Inchalik said the technology used to enhance the footage "puts quality of the image first."

Inchalik and Nafzger dismissed concerns that Lowry’s Hollywood connection would fuel conspiracy theories.

"We’re a restoration house," Inchalik said. "We’re very careful in what we fix and what not to fix. We’re being extremely cautious."

Nafzger emphasized that the restored video were of images already viewed by the public and praised Lowry’s past relationship with NASA.

"This company is restoring historic video. There couldn’t be a more perfect match," he said.

Please check out more great content and details for Newseum's Apollo Family Weekend.

For more information on the restoration scenes, visit www.nasa.gov.

NASA Releases Restored Apollo 11 Video at the Newseum

Watch Video:
• • Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong descends for first steps on moon.
• • Lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin takes his first lunar steps.
• • Armstrong reads the plaque that was left on the moon.
• • The astronauts raise the American flag on the moon.

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

WASHINGTON — To mark the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic walk on the moon, NASA released newly restored video of the historic feat at a press conference July 16 at the Newseum.

Four scenes — of Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong descending the lunar module to take the first steps on the moon; lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin taking his first lunar steps; Armstrong reading the plaque left on the moon; and the astronauts raising the flag on the moon — showed the comparison of the original grainy images and the new improved versions.

After an extensive three-year global search for the original footage — a search that included Stan Lebar, one of the designers of the camera used to record the images on the moon — NASA discovered that the tapes had most likely been permanently erased and recycled to record other data.

The restored images were culled from a variety of sources, including CBS News Archives, tapes recorded from NASA facilities in Sydney, Australia, and NASA kinescopes that had not been viewed for 36 years.

Richard Nafzger, a NASA engineer who oversaw TV processing at the ground tracking sites during Apollo 11, said the new images were a partial restoration and were the digital enhancement of the best available TV footage from July 1969. The final results will be released in September.

Lowry Digital, a Burbank, Calif., company that has restored more than 400 classic films, including "Casablanca" and "Star Wars," was contracted by NASA to restore the footage. The company has a history with NASA — its founder, John Lowry, invented technology called "video noise reduction" that was applied to the Apollo 16 and 17 missions.

Mike Inchalik, Lowry’s president, called the enhancement project "a bit of closure for us." Inchalik said the technology used to enhance the footage "puts quality of the image first."

Inchalik and Nafzger dismissed concerns that Lowry’s Hollywood connection would fuel conspiracy theories.

"We’re a restoration house," Inchalik said. "We’re very careful in what we fix and what not to fix. We’re being extremely cautious."

Nafzger emphasized that the restored video were of images already viewed by the public and praised Lowry’s past relationship with NASA.

"This company is restoring historic video. There couldn’t be a more perfect match," he said.

Please check out more great content and details for Newseum's Apollo Family Weekend.

For more information on the restoration scenes, visit www.nasa.gov.

NASA Releases Restored Apollo 11 Video at the Newseum

Watch Video:
• • Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong descends for first steps on moon.
• • Lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin takes his first lunar steps.
• • Armstrong reads the plaque that was left on the moon.
• • The astronauts raise the American flag on the moon.

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

WASHINGTON — To mark the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic walk on the moon, NASA released newly restored video of the historic feat at a press conference July 16 at the Newseum.

Four scenes — of Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong descending the lunar module to take the first steps on the moon; lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin taking his first lunar steps; Armstrong reading the plaque left on the moon; and the astronauts raising the flag on the moon — showed the comparison of the original grainy images and the new improved versions.

After an extensive three-year global search for the original footage — a search that included Stan Lebar, one of the designers of the camera used to record the images on the moon — NASA discovered that the tapes had most likely been permanently erased and recycled to record other data.

The restored images were culled from a variety of sources, including CBS News Archives, tapes recorded from NASA facilities in Sydney, Australia, and NASA kinescopes that had not been viewed for 36 years.

Richard Nafzger, a NASA engineer who oversaw TV processing at the ground tracking sites during Apollo 11, said the new images were a partial restoration and were the digital enhancement of the best available TV footage from July 1969. The final results will be released in September.

Lowry Digital, a Burbank, Calif., company that has restored more than 400 classic films, including "Casablanca" and "Star Wars," was contracted by NASA to restore the footage. The company has a history with NASA — its founder, John Lowry, invented technology called "video noise reduction" that was applied to the Apollo 16 and 17 missions.

Mike Inchalik, Lowry’s president, called the enhancement project "a bit of closure for us." Inchalik said the technology used to enhance the footage "puts quality of the image first."

Inchalik and Nafzger dismissed concerns that Lowry’s Hollywood connection would fuel conspiracy theories.

"We’re a restoration house," Inchalik said. "We’re very careful in what we fix and what not to fix. We’re being extremely cautious."

Nafzger emphasized that the restored video were of images already viewed by the public and praised Lowry’s past relationship with NASA.

"This company is restoring historic video. There couldn’t be a more perfect match," he said.

Please check out more great content and details for Newseum's Apollo Family Weekend.

For more information on the restoration scenes, visit www.nasa.gov.

Walter Cronkite: On His Signature Sign-off

In a 1996 Newseum interview, Walter Cronkite explained the origin of his signature phrase, "And that's the way it is."

Walter Cronkite: On Network News

In a 1996 Newseum interview, Walter Cronkite discussed his regrets in network news.

Walter Cronkite: On JFK's Assassination

In a 1996 Newseum interview, Walter Cronkite talked about the day President Kennedy was assassinated.

Apollo 11 Mission

Take a photographic look back at the Apollo 11 mission.

First Moonwalk Launches New Era of Communications

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

On July 20, 1969, at 4:17 p.m. EDT, Apollo 11’s lunar module, named "Eagle," landed at the Sea of Tranquility on the surface of the moon.

In accomplishing the unprecedented feat, the crew — commander Neil Armstrong, lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins — fulfilled Apollo 11’s mission: to land men on the moon and return them safely to Earth.

When Armstrong descended the module stairs, taking his historic "small step" as the first human to walk on the moon, he did more than usher in a new age of technological achievement. He helped skyrocket the medium of television into the stratosphere, cementing its place at the core of American life.

Television — which had grown from a laboratory oddity to a dominant news source — wielded power and influence that no other medium could. It brought civil rights battles in the American South to the world’s doorstep and a war in Southeast Asia into American living rooms. Now television was broadcasting lunar images 239,000 miles away into homes on planet Earth. Live coverage of the Apollo 11 mission attracted the largest television audience to that date, estimated at more than 600 million people worldwide.

The world watched Armstrong and Aldrin — who spent 21 hours on the lunar surface — walk, hop, kick moon dust and plant the U.S. flag on lunar soil.

Many consider the moon landing to be one of broadcast news’s greatest moments. CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite’s joyous reaction — "Whew, boy!" — remains one of the most memorable in television history. The satellite technology that made the broadcast possible ultimately would lead to 24-hour news programming.

In a 1999 Newseum public survey of the top 100 stories of the 20th century, the moonwalk was ranked third behind the U.S. dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Cronkite spent 27 hours on the air during CBS’s marathon coverage of the moon landing. He summed up his feelings in a 1996 interview: "It just was so awe-inspiring to actually be able to see the thing through the television. That was a miracle in itself."

An exhibit on the Apollo 11 anniversary is on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery. Vintage news broadcasts of the Apollo 11 moon mission can be viewed on interactive monitors in the Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery. A video marking the anniversary is now showing in the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Big Screen Theater.

Royal Treatment for Fallen Celebrities

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Michael Jackson’s sudden death June 25 at 50 was international news, trumpeted by bold headlines and colorful graphics usually reserved for the deaths of kings, queens and other dignitaries.

Jackson and actress Farrah Fawcett, who died on the same day, were given front-page treatment fit for a "King of Pop" and America’s favorite angel.

A look through the Newseum’s collection of historic front pages, on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery, revealed that when A-list celebrities died young or at the peak of stardom, their deaths were given A-one treatment, occupying most, if not all, of Page One.

When heartthrob actor Rudolph Valentino died in August 1926 of "poisoning of the heart walls," the Los Angeles Evening Herald published a "special extra edition" with every detail of the actor’s life and death. The "sheik," as Valentino was called, was 31 years old.

"Even as life was ebbing away and darkness setting in," the Herald reported, "he turned his dark, handsome face to those gathered at the bedside and, with a wan smile, said: ‘Don’t pull the curtains down, I’m feeling fine and I want the sunlight to greet me.’"

In 1962, the "unclad body" of 36-year-old actress Marilyn Monroe was found in her bed. "Sleeping Pill Overdose Blamed," the Los Angeles Times announced on its front page, which promised more photos and stories on the star’s life. Monroe’s death overshadowed news on the same page that the Soviet Union had tested a 40-megaton nuclear bomb high in the atmosphere.

"Memphis Leads World in Mourning for Elvis Presley," the singer’s hometown Memphis Press-Scimitar declared in 1977. The paper announced that it would print a special "Elvis Presley Edition" in conjunction with Memphis’s other major newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, to meet the demands for souvenir copies. "The King," as Presley was called, was 42 years old.

"Humans have always been interested in the particularly powerful, beautiful, accomplished — and we seem to take a certain perverse satisfaction in watching these people, whom we have elevated, brought down to earth," said Mitchell Stephens, professor of journalism at New York University and a Newseum consultant. "Death, which has always been big news — perhaps the biggest news — certainly brings [them] down to earth."

On Dec. 9, 1980, the Liverpool Echo blanketed its front page with the death of the city’s native son, former Beatle John Lennon.

"After a man police described as a ‘local screwball’ pumped five bullets into Lennon, he yelled ‘I’m shot,’ and staggered up a few steps into the apartment building where he lived," the Echo reported. "And as the 40-years-old [sic] superstar lay dying in the arms of his wife, Yoko Ono, he whispered ‘Help me,’ according to neighbour Carrie Rouse."

When Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997, Britain’s News of the World printed a "6 a.m. shock issue." The "full tragedy" of the death of the 36-year-old princess was continued on pages 2 and 3.

USA Today devoted two sections of its July 19, 1999, edition to the death of 38-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr., considered the crown prince of America’s "royal" family. Coverage of Kennedy, his wife and his sister-in-law, both of whom died with him in the crash of the private plane Kennedy piloted, included a front-page cover story, reaction quotes, a graphic of the pilot’s seat and a synopsis of Kennedy’s life and times.

In 2008, the news of actor Heath Ledger’s accidental death and newsman Tim Russert’s sudden death from a heart attack was splashed across newspaper front pages and magazine covers, as well as their Internet counterparts. Coverage was swift, immediate and intense on 24-hour cable and in blogs.

"Certainly, there are more places for this news," said Stephens. "And, to be fair, all these places have their own need for news, so there is a need for more and more information on the deceased."

Related link: Front Pages Archive

From Carrier Pigeons to Twitter: Timely News Still the Goal

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

In 1832, French journalist Charles Havas started Agence Havas, a news service in Paris that sold translations of foreign news to the city’s newspapers. Agence Havas was the first major private news agency in the world.

Getting the news to readers in a speedy manner was crucial to the agency’s success, so as early as 1835, Havas used carrier pigeons to transport stock prices.

Fast forward to 2009, when Iranian protesters are using Twitter — an online social-networking site that uses a bird as its unofficial icon — to send messages about the protests and police crackdowns to the rest of the world through their cell phones and the Internet. The Iranian government has restricted foreign journalists from reporting the events in Tehran.

The tweets, or "microblogs," as the messages are called, have been so vital to behind-the-scenes information in Tehran that the U.S. State Department asked Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance to allow the messages to continue. This request has users cooing over the technology and is considered a milestone in the rapidly evolving world of instant communication.

Twitter, which was founded in 2007, grew from its founder’s simple idea of wanting to know what his friends were doing. Two years and more than a billion tweets later, subscribers are doing just that — and more — in 140 characters or less.

In May 2008, one of the first reports about the earthquake in China’s Sichuan province was a Twitter message, which beat a Bloomberg News wire flash by 23 seconds. Six months later in November, eyewitnesses posted thousands of Twitter updates about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

Twitter’s site on June 17 carried up-to-the-minute messages about the protests in Iran.

One user posted live from Iran: "More than 100,000 people at Tehran protest. ‘We students do not chant death to America we want the American constitution.’"

Another user said, "After watching Twitter essentially save democracy in Iran, Mafoo is re-evaluating his Twitter apathy."

The story of Twitter is told in the Newseum’s Digital News Gallery. The story of Agence Havas and other news agencies can be found in the News Corporation News History Gallery. Follow the Newseum on Twitter.

12-Year Sentence for U.S. Journalists in North Korea

By Patty Rhule, Newseum project editor

Two American journalists held in North Korea since March 17 were sentenced June 8 to 12 years each in a labor camp.

Euna Lee and Laura Ling, reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were pursuing a story about refugees fleeing North Korea when they were arrested near the border with China. They were convicted of "grave crimes" and entering North Korea illegally, though some reports said they were arrested in China.

The sentence was the latest provocative move by North Korea, which in the past two months has launched a long-range missile, tested an underground nuclear bomb and rejected the agreement that ended the Korean War.

The White House expressed deep concern about the sentencing. "We are engaged through all possible channels" to secure their release, said White House spokesman Bill Burton.

North Korea is in the midst of a leadership change as leader Kim Jong Il is believed to be ailing.

The five-day trial was held in North Korea’s highest court in the capital of Pyongyang — an indication that no appeal is permitted. Outsiders were barred from attending.

The Committee to Protect Journalists called the sentences "deplorable."

"We call on all parties to the Six Party talks — North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States — to work together for their release," said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator.

Last week, Lisa Ling, a journalist who is the sister of prisoner Laura Ling, reached out to the North Korean government.

"If at any point the girls went into North Korea, then we apologize on their behalf," Ling said.

The jailed women have spoken with their families. Ling said her sister was "very scared," though both women said they had been treated "fairly."

Have a Camel, Cup of Joe

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

In 1949, in what was one of the earliest collaborations between a national TV news program and an advertiser, John Cameron Swayze — NBC’s first television newscaster — hosted the "Camel News Caravan" while smoking Camel cigarettes on the air.

Back then, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s corporate sponsorship of the 15-minute program required Swayze to have one of the company’s Camel brand cigarettes lit whenever he was broadcasting. The program opened with an invitation to viewers to "Sit back, light up a Camel and be an eyewitness to the happenings that made history in the last 24 hours."

When R.J. Reynolds pared its weekly sponsorship of the program from five days a week to three in 1955, Chrysler, maker of Plymouth automobiles, sponsored the rest of the week and changed the program’s name to the "Plymouth News Caravan" on those two days.

At CBS, news icon Walter Cronkite had a brief and unsuccessful on-air fling hawking Winston cigarettes, another R.J. Reynolds product.

When "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" replaced the Camel and Plymouth news programs in 1956, Swayze left NBC for a brief stint at ABC, before becoming a successful TV commercial spokesperson for Timex watches. Individual company sponsorships of news programs became a thing of the past when news divisions became sensitive to conflict-of-interest perceptions and the effect that sponsors would have on their objectivity.

What a difference 60 years make.

In 2009, in what is hailed a "natural fit" by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, another NBC news entity — MSNBC’s weekday talk show "Morning Joe" — is now wedded to an advertiser, in this case, the ubiquitous coffee chain. Promotional ads declare that the three-hour program, hosted by Joe Scarborough with co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist, is "brewed by Starbucks."

Long before the deal was officially inked, Scarborough, the "Joe" in "Morning Joe," openly drank Starbucks Frappuccinos on camera. MSNBC’s president Phil Griffin said the cable program’s sponsorship would not compromise its news judgment.

Doughnuts, anyone?

The story of Swayze and the "Camel News Caravan" is told in the Newseum’s Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery and the News Corporation News History Gallery.

Obama's Puppy Popular With Newseum Visitors

By Bridget Gutierrez, Newseum exhibits writer

WASHINGTON — Bo Obama has been in the White House for just six weeks, but Newseum visitors already consider the cute Portuguese water dog to be America’s "top first dog."

More than 9,100 votes have been cast in the museum’s just-for-kicks popularity poll, which pits the current and former presidential dogs against one another.

In addition to Bo, Bill Clinton’s Labrador retriever, Buddy; George H.W. Bush’s English Springer spaniel, Millie; Richard Nixon’s cocker spaniel, Checkers; Lyndon B. Johnson’s beagles, Him and Her; and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Scottish terrier, Fala, are vying for the title of "top first dog" in the special election.

One month into the poll, Bo is leading the pack with 35 percent of the votes. Fala, who once starred in a Hollywood movie, is running second with 23 percent.

The election is part of the popular exhibit, "First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Pets," which features photographs of nearly two dozen U.S. presidents and their furry friends. "First Dogs" is now on view in the museum’s Special Exhibits area on Level 4.

"First Dogs" is supported by a gift to the Newseum from PEDIGREE®, a brand of Mars, Inc.

Tiananmen Square Uprising: Technology Kept News Flowing

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Twenty years ago this week, the world was riveted by startling images coming out of the People’s Republic of China: tens of thousands of students protesting for freedom and democracy in Beijng’s Tiananmen Square.

With them stood a 40-foot-tall statue — called the Goddess of Democracy — created out of foam and papier-mâché by students of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and modeled after the Statue of Liberty. The protests, sparked by the death in April of a pro-reform state official, had escalated from mourning observances into a seven-week movement that prompted martial law and left several hundred protesters dead.

The international media, initially in Beijing to cover the state visit in May of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, found themselves thrust into demonstrations and a government crackdown, which they covered live. They were there when the tanks rolled into the square and as a defiant protester boldly stood in front of them to halt their advance.

The Chinese government banned all foreign news coverage, shutting down satellite transmissions and detaining journalists who did not comply. Reporters got around the ban by reporting by mobile telephone. Students in China’s pro-democracy movement kept the news flowing by fax machines and electronic mail connections. Technology managed to open Chinese repressions to the world, despite government censorship and the removal of news correspondents.

The protests ended June 4 when army tanks cleared the square. The Goddess of Democracy was destroyed; a replica is currently displayed in the Newseum’s Time Warner World News Gallery. By the end of the year, the communist government in East Germany collapsed and with it, the Berlin Wall. Two years later, the world witnessed the fall of the Soviet Union.

A Newseum map that highlights press freedom around the world and is updated each year shows that the press in China, 20 years after the Tiananmen Square protests, is still not free.

Join us Sunday, June 7, in the Time Warner World News Gallery on Level 3 for Gallery Talks on Chinese media and government censorship. Gallery Talks are at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

Related story: Online Censorship Poses Olympic Challenge for Journalists

'UP' Up and Away at the Newseum

Photo slideshow | Video

WASHINGTON — Visitors got an "UP"-lifting experience May 29 at the Newseum to celebrate the opening of Disney/Pixar’s new PG-rated animated movie "UP." Several lucky Newseum visitors got the chance to soar up to 50 feet in the New York Times–Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News strapped in a balloon-powered easy chair.

WTTG Fox 5 anchor Holly Morris was the first reporter to ride in the chair. Click here for her report.

"UP" is the story of Carl Fredricksen, a 78-year-old balloon salesman who ties thousands of balloons to his house and takes off on an adventure to South America with an 8-year-old accidental stowaway. Actor Ed Asner provides the voice of Fredricksen.

In 2008, Disney/Pixar’s star robot WALL*E thrilled visitors during an exclusive visit to the Newseum. Last February, the "WALL*E" movie won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

'UP' Up and Away at the Newseum

Photo slideshow | Video

WASHINGTON — Visitors got an "UP"-lifting experience May 29 at the Newseum to celebrate the opening of Disney/Pixar’s new PG-rated animated movie "UP." Several lucky Newseum visitors got the chance to soar up to 50 feet in the New York Times–Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News strapped in a balloon-powered easy chair.

'Our World at War' Exhibit Opens June 5 at the Newseum

WASHINGTON — A new exhibit featuring the work of five award-winning photojournalists in eight war-torn and ravaged countries will be on display at the Newseum June 5 through Sept. 7, 2009.

"Our World at War: Photojournalism Beyond the Front Lines," includes 40 photos taken in Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, Haiti, Lebanon, Liberia and the Philippines. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) sent the photographers to those countries to document how war and armed violence have affected people’s lives.

The photographers whose work is exhibited are:

• • Ron Haviv, who has used his photography to expose human rights violations in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Russia and the Balkans. He has documented wars in Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and has published two acclaimed books of photos: "Blood and Honey: A Balkan War Journal" and "Afghanistan: One the Road to Kabul."
• • Antonin Kratochvil, whose perspective as a former child refugee in his native Czechoslovakia is reflected in his images. He has photographed street children in Mongolia, covered the war in Iraq and produced a photo study of clashes between the Department of Homeland Security and American civil liberties in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
• • Christopher Morris, who has spent much of the past 20 years focused on war, having documented more than 18 foreign conflicts, including the U.S. invasions of Panama and Iraq, the Persian Gulf War, the drug war in Colombia and the wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia and Yugoslavia. Most recently, he documented the presidency of George W. Bush for Time magazine.
• • James Nachtwey, who has documented wars, conflicts and critical social issues since his first foreign assignment covering civil strife in Northern Ireland in 1981. Since then, Nachtwey has covered war and upheaval in Afghanistan, Bosnia, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, the Philippines, Rwanda, Somalia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand and the United States.
• • Franco Pagetti, who is drawn to the way conflict shows society and people at their best and worst. He has covered crises in Afghanistan, Kosovo, East Timor, Kashmir, Palestine, Sierra Leone and South Sudan. He began covering the conflict in Iraq in January 2003, three months before the war began. Since then, he has been based primarily in Baghdad, mainly on assignment for Time magazine.

"Whatever else one might see or feel when looking at a picture of human suffering — outrage, sadness, disbelief — what I think is essential to take away from such an image is a sense of compassion," said Nachtwey, who traveled to Afghanistan and the Philippines for the project.

The exhibit, created by the ICRC and VII Photo Agency, is part of a global campaign to raise awareness of humanitarian challenges and to mark the 150th anniversary of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Plan your visit and buy your tickets now. Admission is free for annual members.

Newseum Goes Behind the Scenes of "The War Room"

WASHINGTON — George Stephanopoulos, along with former Clinton advisers Dee Dee Myers and Paul Begala, joined host Nick Clooney for a screening of "The War Room" in the first installment of the "Reel Journalism" spring film series on Monday, May 18, 2009. The 1993 documentary is a behind-the-scenes look at then-Gov. Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and how he, and his new breed of political advisers and strategists, defeated Bush.

Related link: Watch video highlights

Astronaut Cernan Moon Walks Audience Through Apollo 10 Anniversary

WASHINGTON — At a special Newseum program May 18 commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 10 mission, astronaut Gene Cernan shared with a packed audience his experience on that crucial flight. Veteran journalist and distinguished journalist-in-residence Nick Clooney moderated the event.

Cernan, who piloted the lunar module named Snoopy, was the second American to walk in space and the last person to walk on the moon in 1972.

Though the Apollo 10 mission did not include an actual moon landing, Cernan, along with commander Thomas P. Stafford and command module pilot John W. Young, carried out the actual maneuvers that the Apollo 11 crew would perform on their historic moon landing two months later.

Apollo 10’s journey to the moon and back to Earth took 192 hours, 3 minutes and 23 seconds. It was the first mission to use live color TV transmissions; the first mission to travel with a fully configured spacecraft; and the first mission of an "all-experienced" crew of NASA veterans.

U.S. Journalist Freed from Iranian Prison

By Patty Rhule, Newseum projects editor

Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist who had been jailed in Iran for three months, was released from Tehran’s Evin Prison May 11.

Saberi had been jailed since Jan. 31, initially for buying alcohol and then on charges of spying for the United States. She was sentenced to eight years in prison in April and recently held a two-week hunger strike in protest. On May 10, the charges and her sentence were reduced on appeal.

Saberi and her family were expected to return to the United States after her release. Born in the United States, Saberi moved to Iran six years ago, where she was a freelance reporter for National Public Radio and the BBC. In 2006, she began work on a book about Iran, her father said.

As Saberi returned to freedom, in North Korea, two U.S. journalists are in jail and face trial on June 4.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, working for San Francisco-based Current TV, were arrested near the Chinese border by North Korean authorities March 17. The women will be tried in North Korea's highest court, the Central Court, an indication of the serious nature of the case.

A statement released from the state-run Korean Central News Agency did not detail the charges they face, but previously, they were accused of entering North Korea illegally and being hostile to the state. Those charges could mean up to 10 years in prison. Ling and Lee were working on a story about North Koreans fleeing their country.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, while celebrating news of Saberi’s release, notes that an estimated 125 journalists remain jailed around the world.

Newspapers in Peril? Hold the Obituaries

By Gene Policinski, vice president, executive director, First Amendment Center

Newspapers are down, but not out. In some fashion, size and format they, and the journalism they practice, are likely to be around for a long time.

There’s no question that the newspaper industry, as this nation has known it for more than 100 years, is undergoing wrenching change. Big media companies and their stockholders have seen share value plunge to mere pennies. Big-city newspapers have closed and hundreds of others, big and small, have made deep staff cuts. Editions have fewer pages — in some places, there are fewer weekly editions. First Amendment advocates worry about a diminishing ability to serve as a "watchdog on government."

But all of this is a long way from justifying an obituary notice right now for newspapers as an industry — or, as some have suggested, to fear for the very existence of a free press in America.

• • First, as to whether "newsprint" editions are doomed to die out, the news for some isn’t good. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Denver’s Rocky Mountain News have shut down; the Boston Globe needed huge union concessions to avert a threatened closing and other major dailies are considering filing, or have filed, for bankruptcy protection. Still, the "PI" and "The Rocky" were part — and the weaker part, at that — of a Joint Operating Agreement with the economically stronger newspaper in town. It’s not quite accurate to characterize the ending of life-support measures for those two patients as representative of what’s ailing an entire industry.
• • Second, many newspapers remain profitable but face cutbacks and staff reductions because at current income vs. cost levels, those papers are not making enough money to satisfy local investors or national stockholders.
• • Third, some of the harshest critics say the financial crisis for many newspaper groups is due in large part to big debts, run-up acquisitions made worse by the nation’s recession, and bad planning or lack of foresight in stemming ad and readership losses to Web-based competitors. As we’re seeing in the banking, automobile and mortgage industries, those who took the riskiest risks in pursuit of the biggest profits may not survive. But the more financially-conservative brethren may.
• • Finally, others point to the relative economic health of locally owned or small-group newspapers that exist in communities where there is as yet no Internet competitor and where the newspaper remains a source for classified advertising and readers that advertisers want to reach.

Newspapers will change. Their look, size, frequency and subject matter will evolve in response to the reach and content of online news and information sources. In its simplest form, this may mean no more baseball stats, Wall Street stocks and TV or movie listings on a printed page.

But for years to come — even as Web sites and bloggers mature and develop reputations for credibility and move beyond opinion into news and investigative operations — newspapers, perhaps in partnership with bloggers, broadcasters, and others in their communities, will remain required reading for stories and commentary prepared and presented by trusted, authoritative professionals. We may even keep the "news" and lose the "paper" part — as devices such as the latest Kindle "electronic book" provide the look and page-style format of a newspaper, but present it via an online mechanism.

One of the ironies of the Web is that as more information is presented online, it becomes more difficult for individuals to aggregate it in a meaningful way.

I have no quarrel with those who say the newspaper of today won’t be here tomorrow. I just resist the idea that tomorrow necessarily will come without some kind of newspaper.

Gene Policinski is a former managing editor at USA Today. His and other columns on First Amendment issues can be found at firstamendmentcenter.org.

Related story: Newspapers in Peril? This Time, It’s Different
Related video: Digital Newspapers: The New Reality

Newspapers in Peril? This Time, It’s Different

By W. Joseph Campbell, associate professor, American University

In June 1897, near the end of a staggering economic downturn, the Journalist trade publication offered pithy advice for reporters and editors in New York City which, then as now, was the nerve center of American journalism.

The recession of the mid-1890s battered metropolitan journalism, especially in New York. Layoffs swept the city’s newsrooms. Newspapers in 1897 speculated which of their rivals might have to fold. High on the critical list was The New York Times, which had been acquired just months before by Adolph Ochs.

Against the tableau of gloom of that long ago summer, the Journalist advised: "Go anywhere, but leave New York. It is today the poorest field for anything but the highest talents, and these are often crowded into insignificance."

To be sure, American newspapers have endured tough times before, and survived and prospered. Grim predictions of their demise, stimulated by hard economic times, proved illusory.

But this time, it’s different. Newspapers as vigorous and conspicuous forces in the American media landscape may not survive this economic storm. There are at least four powerful reasons why they may be doomed.

• • One, the long-established business model, in which newspapers were a convenient and effective means of bringing together buyers and sellers through advertising, is fractured beyond repair. For years, advertising has been deserting the press for the Internet, where bringing together buyers and sellers is cheaper and far more efficient.
• • Two, the Internet has unbundled media content. One need not buy a newspaper just for sports news. Or international news. Or stock tables. It’s all online, in discrete packages and in unmatched variety. News à la carte has proven irresistible.
• • Three, greater numbers of Americans are finding the news irrelevant. Almost 20 percent of adult Americans go without news during a typical day, according to the Pew Research Center’s biennial media-use survey in 2008. Ten years earlier, the percentage of American adults who went newsless was 14 percent. Among adults 18-to-24-years-old these days, 34 percent say they go newsless. A declining constituency for news offers no encouragement for newspapers.
• • Four, newspapers have been complicit in their decline. Their credibility — the notion they play it straight in reporting the news — is deeply doubted. Slightly more than 20 percent of adult Americans believe all or most of what they read in their local newspaper, Pew data say. For The New York Times, the believability quotient is 18 percent. It’s 16 percent for USA Today.

On top of all that, the worst recession in years has made it nearly impossible for prominent newspaper companies, such as Chicago-based Tribune Co., to dig out from staggering loads of debt.

Sadly, it is different this time. The predicament facing American newspapers is as bleak as it is unprecedented.

W. Joseph Campbell, a former Newseum scholar, is a journalism historian who teaches at American University in Washington. He is the author of four books, including The Year That Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms (2006) and Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies (2001).

Related story: Newspapers in Peril? Hold the Obituaries
Related video: Digital Newspapers: The New Reality

Newspapers in Peril?

Sagging subscriptions, shrinking circulation and dwindling advertising are the triple threats to the survival of the nation’s dailies. And the power and pull of the Internet are causing many newspapers to flail, fail or fold. But are newspapers dying, or is it premature and unreasonable to sound the death knell? Two journalism scholars offer their views.

This Time, It’s Different
By W. Joseph Campbell, associate professor, American University

Hold the Obituaries
By Gene Policinski, vice president, executive director, First Amendment Center

Related video: Digital Newspapers: The New Reality

'FOTOBAMA' Opens at the Newseum

WASHINGTON — A new exhibit showcasing the top 100 winners and finalists in the 2009 FOTOBAMA international photography contest opens May 7, 2009, at the Newseum.

"FOTOBAMA: Picturing the President" features images from the historic campaign, election and inauguration of Barack Obama. With a wide array of perspectives, the exhibit chronicles the campaign that captivated Americans and led them to embrace the country’s first black president.

Obama can be seen body-surfing during a campaign break in Hawaii, shedding a tear for his late grandmother at a campaign rally and embracing his wife, Michelle, after the election night victory. Images from inauguration week depict not only official events, but also the outpouring of emotion from the millions who came to the nation’s capital to witness the beginning of a historic presidency.

Amateur and professional photographers were invited to submit photographs to the FOTOBAMA competition, which received more than 1,500 entries. A panel of noted photojournalists and photo editors selected 25 finalists in each of four categories. First and second place were awarded in each group. "Best in Show" went to Associated Press photographer Chris Carlson for his image of Obama being swamped by supporters after clinching the Democratic nomination. For other contest winners, visit FotoWeek DC.

FOTOBAMA is sponsored by the Newseum and FotoWeek DC, a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting photography. The exhibit will be on display on Level 6 until Sept. 7, 2009.

Related Link:
• 'FOTOBAMA' Winners Announced

FOTOBAMA Winners Announced

WASHINGTON — On the 100th day of President Barack Obama’s administration, the Newseum and FotoWeek DC unveiled the winners of the 2009 FOTOBAMA international photography contest. Prizes were awarded to the top two photographs in each of four categories, selected from more than 1,500 images entered in the contest by both amateur and professional photographers. "Best in Show" went to Associated Press photographer Chris Carlson for his image of Obama being swamped by supporters after clinching the Democratic nomination.

FOTOBAMA celebrates the historic election of the nation’s first black president. The contest is sponsored by the Newseum and FotoWeek DC, a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting photography. The top 100 photographs from the contest will be displayed in the Newseum exhibit "FOTOBAMA: Picturing the President," which opens May 7, 2009.

The winning photographs and photographers:

Presidential Campaign and Election — Professional

First Place and Best in Show
Supporting Hands
Chris Carlson, The Associated Press

Second Place
Whistling While He Waits
Jae C. Hong, The Associated Press

Presidential Campaign and Election — Amateur

First Place
Crowd-Surfing to Victory
Tucker Walsh

Second Place
Trading Places
Val Proudkii

Inauguration Week — Professional

First Place
End of Anonymity
Aude Guerrucci, Polaris

Second Place
Witness
David S. Holloway, Reportage by Getty Images

Inauguration Week — Amateur

First Place
Walking the Walk
Charlie Parker

Second Place
Inauguration 2009
Graeme Jennings

A Tree Grows on Campus

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

In 1765, near historic Boston Common, a 119-year-old elm tree became a gathering site for early American patriots who increasingly voiced the need for a new nation founded on liberty. The Liberty Tree, as the elm was called, was a rallying point for dissent against British rule and symbolized freedom and unity in the American colonies.

In 2009, the Liberty Tree Initiative honors that tradition by building awareness of the First Amendment’s five freedoms through events and speakers at colleges across the country. The program, which includes a coalition of journalists, educators and other First Amendment supporters, was founded in partnership with the American Society of News Editors, with help and support from the McCormick Foundation, the Knight Foundation and the First Amendment Center, an affiliate of the Newseum.

The 2009 Liberty Tree Initiative program began this week at Berry College in Mount Berry, Ga. The college has declared April 23 to 30 Liberty Tree Week and is featuring a wide range of programming, including music, lectures and an exhibit of banned books.

Among the events are an evening of banned music, a presentation on the Gutenberg Bible by master bookbinder Tim Yancey and a discussion about religious expression and freedom of information led by Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center.

"We’re very honored to have been granted the first Liberty Tree grant of 2009," said Brian Carroll, associate professor of journalism at Berry College. "I feel like we’ve been given $5,000 to show the First Amendment a really good time here at Berry, and that’s exactly what we’re planning to do.

"We also hope to increase awareness and appreciation of the First Amendment here on campus and in our community, and to do it in ways that engage and even entertain."

Ken Paulson, president and chief operating officer of the Freedom Forum, Newseum and Diversity Institute, was one of the driving forces behind the Liberty Tree Initiative through his affiliations with ASNE and the First Amendment Center.

"The Liberty Tree Initiative is a remarkable partnership that taps into the energy of the First Amendment and the insights of experts, academic leaders, artists, musicians and journalists across this country," Paulson said.

Paulson will deliver the keynote address, "Rebooting America: The First Amendment and a New Generation," at Berry College at the conclusion of Liberty Tree Week.

Funding for additional Liberty Tree Campus Initiative grants is available. For information, contact Sandra Chance at schance@jou.ufl.edu or 352/392-2273.

Related Links:
• American Society of News Editors
• McCormick Foundation
• Knight Foundation
• First Amendment Center

Jailed Journalists: Three Americans Imprisoned Abroad

By Patty Rhule, Newseum projects editor

Three American journalists are in jail in Iran and North Korea as United Nations World Press Freedom Day arrives May 3.

Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist who had reported for National Public Radio and the BBC, was arrested in January and sentenced April 18 to eight years in jail. The charge: spying for the United States. Saberi was born in the United States and moved to Iran six years ago, where she was a freelance reporter. In 2006, she began work on a book about Iran, her father said.

Iranian dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi will defend Saberi in her appeal. President Barack Obama, as well as press and human rights groups, has called for Saberi’s release.

In North Korea, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, working for San Francisco-based Current TV, were arrested March 17 on the Chinese border by North Korean authorities. The women were accused of entering North Korea illegally and being hostile to the state. Ling and Lee were working on a story about North Koreans escaping their country.

The three Americans are among an estimated 125 journalists who are in jail around the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Newseum's No. 1 Fan

When the Newseum first opened its doors on Pennsylvania Avenue April 11, 2008, Mark Pierzchala was the first visitor to walk through them. Since then, Pierzchala — whose door prize included a free annual Press Pass membership — has logged hundreds of frequent visitor hours. The Montgomery County, Md., resident has visited the Newseum every Friday since its grand opening. Hear what the museum's No. 1 fan has to say about the news media and his favorite exhibits and galleries.

More Visitor Comments

First Dogs: Presidential Pets in the White House

By Bridget Gutierrez, Newseum exhibits writer

WASHINGTON — If you want a friend in Washington, the old saying goes, get a dog. Since the days of George Washington, most U.S. presidents have.

Hundreds of pets have lived at the White House, including parrots, goats, raccoons and cats. But dogs top the list as the favorite presidential pet.

The Newseum’s popular exhibit "First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Pets," showcases some of the top dogs who have resided at the nation’s most prestigious address. On display are images of dogs belonging to 23 presidents, including the newest addition: Bo, a six-month-old Portuguese water dog — a gift to the Obamas from Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Scottish terrier, Fala, had his own press secretary. Warren G. Harding’s Airedale, Laddie Boy, had his own chair at Cabinet meetings. A book "written" by George H.W. Bush’s English springer spaniel, Millie, sold more copies than Bush’s own book.

Some highlights of other presidents and their pets include:

• • Abraham Lincoln’s dog Fido was the first presidential pet to be photographed, but it wasn’t a happy occasion. Lincoln was leaving Fido, a mongrel, in Illinois and wanted a memento for his sons before setting out for his 1861 inauguration in Washington.
  
  
• • Calvin and Grace Coolidge maintained a menagerie during his 1920s presidency, including 12 dogs and a pair of raccoons. On display is a photograph of their white collie Prudence Prim showing off her Easter bonnet for Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon.
  
  
• • Herbert Hoover won fans, and possibly his 1928 election, by posing with his police dog, King Tut, for campaign photos. He and his wife, Lou, kept nine dogs at the White House, including their Norwegian elkhound, Weegie.
  
  
• • John F. Kennedy was allergic to dogs. Even so, the Kennedys had nine, including Clipper, Charlie, Wolf, Shannon and the mixed breed Pushinka, a gift from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
  
  
• • In April 1964, dog lovers protested after seeing front-page photos of Lyndon B. Johnson lifting his beagles, Him and Her, by the ears. Insisting to reporters that the dogs didn’t mind, Johnson demonstrated the move again days later.
  
  
• • Forced to account for $18,000 in questionable gifts during the 1952 election, Republican vice presidential nominee Richard M. Nixon insisted to a television audience that the only gift he received was for his children — a cocker spaniel named Checkers. He won voters’ sympathies when he explained, "The kids love the dog … and we’re going to keep it."
  
  
• • Gerald R. Ford’s photographer, David Hume Kennerly, was looking for a golden retriever for his boss in 1974 but didn’t want to reveal who the owner would be. "Do they own or rent?" the breeder asked. "I guess you could say they live in public housing," Kennerly deadpanned. Ford named the dog Liberty.
  
  
• • George W. Bush joked that his Scottish terrier, Barney, was the son he never had. Bush’s "Barney Cam" videos, showing life at the White House from the dog’s view, were an Internet sensation. Barney made news again in November 2008 when he bit a reporter who tried to pet him.

During a recent poll asking Newseum visitors which kind of dog they thought the Obamas should choose, 40,000 votes were cast; more than 20,000 selected a shelter dog over five breeds recommended by the American Kennel Club. President Obama also had expressed a preference for a shelter dog, but the family needed a hypoallergenic dog because of daughter Malia’s allergies. When the Obamas introduced Bo on April 11, they announced that they would make a donation to the Washington Humane Society.

A new poll in the exhibit asks visitors to vote for their favorite presidential pet of all time.

"First Dogs" is supported by a gift to the Newseum from PEDIGREE®, a brand of Mars, Inc.

From Marshall McLuhan to Susan Boyle

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Ten days ago, Susan Boyle was a household name only to neighbors in her small village of Blackburn, Scotland. Today, thanks to the power of the Internet and the World Wide Web, Boyle is an overnight sensation, a rising star in the global village.

For those who somehow missed Boyle’s fairy-tale story, she’s the unemployed, middle-aged, never-married singer who stunned cynical talent-show judges and a jeering crowd with her beautiful rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" from the musical "Les Misérables."

At last count, her performance in a seven-minute video has logged more than 30 million views on YouTube. Factor in the other Boyle-related videos that have been Twittered, bookmarked, shared on MySpace, Facebook, cell phones and other social networks and devices, and the views jump to an unprecedented 85 million — and counting.

As media theorist Marshall McLuhan would say, the medium is indeed the message.

When McLuhan coined that phrase, as well as "global village," in the 1960s, he was referring to the inevitable power of the electronic media and most notably, the cultural impact of television. Back then, it took nearly two months for a mop-haired group called the Beatles to become a TV sensation in the United States. Today, Boyle already has an entry in Wikipedia.

Nearly 45 years after McLuhan’s observation, the convergence of television, the Internet, the Web, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and Google have helped turn Boyle into an instant international media star, and for now, the most famous villager on the planet.

Learn more about the history of the Internet and changing technology in the Newseum’s Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery.

Pulitzers Honor Best in Journalism

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

The best in journalism was honored April 20, 2009, at Columbia University with the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s highest honor.

Awards were given in 21 categories, including 14 journalism categories. The public service award — which comes with a prestigious gold medal — is given to a news organization. All other winners receive $10,000 each.

This year, the Pulitzer Prize for public service was awarded to the Las Vegas Sun for its story on the exposure of the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip.

For the first time in the history of the Pulitzer Prizes, online-only newspapers and news organizations were eligible to submit entries in all 14 categories, although none claimed the accolade.

The award for breaking news photography went to Patrick Farrell of The Miami Herald for his images of the devastation in Haiti after Hurricane Ike and other storms. Damon Winter of The New York Times won the award for feature photography for his pictures of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

These images will be added to the Newseum’s permanent and traveling exhibits of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs. The exhibit catalog, "The Pulitzer Prize Photographs: Capture the Moment," showcases the prize-winning photographs and reveals the stories behind them. View the Newseum’s Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery.

Since 1917, Columbia University has recognized remarkable achievements in journalism, arts and letters, thanks to a bequest from crusading publisher Joseph Pulitzer. In his will, he endowed the university with $2 million for a school of journalism and "prizes or scholarships for the encouragement of public service, public morals, American literature and the advancement of education."

For a complete list of 2009 winners, visit www.pulitzer.org. A Newseum exhibit on the winners will be displayed in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

Newseum Recognizes Banned Books

By Lesette R. Heath, special programs coordinator

WASHINGTON — At the Banned Books Nook during the Newseum’s April 11 anniversary celebration, visitors of all ages were shocked to see many of their literary favorites on the list of books being challenged or banned:

• • "Charlotte’s Web," by E.B. White.
• • "Where The Wild Things Are," by Maurice Sendak.
• • "Little House on the Prairie," by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
• • "Harriet the Spy," by Louise Fitzhugh.
• • "Are You There, God, It’s Me, Margaret," by Judy Blume.
• • "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry," by Mildred B. Taylor.

The reasons for the bans are countless.

"Charlotte’s Web," the story of a pig that befriends a remarkably talented spider, was challenged for its "unnatural" depiction of talking animals.

"Harriet the Spy," the story about a young girl so determined to become a famous writer that she writes down everything she sees, was challenged because it allegedly teaches children to lie, spy on others, curse and talk back to adults.

Opponents of "Where the Wild Things Are," winner of the 1964 Caldecott Medal for the Most Distinguished Picture Book of the Year, argued that it contained disturbing elements, such as the supernatural and witchcraft.

In fact, several children’s books — including Tomie dePaola’s "Strega Nona" and J.K. Rowling’s best-selling "Harry Potter" series — have been banned or challenged for depicting witchcraft.

The tradition of banning books dates back to the 1550s, when Pope Paul IV created the Index Librorium Prohibitorium (List of Prohibited Books) to protect Roman Catholics from reading immoral material.

In modern times, school and public libraries often deal with complaints — usually from parents — asking that books be removed from shelves. Coming-of-age novels, loaded with their share of teenage angst, have not escaped criticism.

"Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret" was challenged for its candid discussions about sex and use of profanity. The acclaimed "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" has attracted frequent critics for its alleged racist material and offensive language.

"We created this activity in hopes of opening dialogue between parents and children on the topic of book banning," said Barbara McCormack, Newseum senior education manager. "The books children read should be a decision made by the family, not others."

She added, "Book banning impacts all generations’ First Amendment rights and above all else, their freedom to read."

Book censorship and other First Amendment issues are discussed in the Newseum’s Cox Enterprises First Amendment Gallery.

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The First Dog Debuts

By Bridget Gutierrez, Newseum exhibits writer

After months of dogged reporting about what kind of puppy the new first family would bring to Washington, the, uh, cat is out of the bag.

Bo, a Portuguese water dog, was unveiled April 11 by a hastily assembled Web site called FirstDogCharlie.com. The site posted the first known photograph of the black-and-white, curly-haired cutie, scooping The Washington Post, which apparently had been promised a doggy exclusive.

The Web site claimed the 6-month-old puppy’s original name was Charlie. Renamed Bo by the Obamas, the puppy did not come from a shelter, as many Newseum visitors had hoped. The pet was a gift from Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, an Obama backer and Portuguese water dog owner.

Of the more than 37,000 votes cast in the Newseum’s five-month presidential pooch poll, more than half said the Obamas should get a shelter dog. Kennedy reportedly rescued Bo from a home where he had been a bad fit. According to The Post, the first family also is making a donation to the local humane society.

Bo will join dozens of past presidential pooches in the Newseum’s exhibit "First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Pets." The show — supported by a gift to the Newseum from PEDIGREE®, a brand of Mars, Inc. — features intimate photographs of presidents and their furry friends and is scheduled to end May 15, 2009.

Newseum's Birthday Celebration

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Record Crowd Celebrates Newseum's First

WASHINGTON — Nearly 6,000 people visited the Newseum April 11 to help celebrate the First Amendment and the museum’s first anniversary on historic Pennsylvania Avenue.

Thomas Jefferson was there. The popular News Hound was, too. A steady stream of visitors participated in an all-day celebration that included music, gifts and several hands-on activities. Since its grand opening in 2008, the 250,000-square-foot interactive museum of news has welcomed more than 700,000 visitors.

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New Artifacts on Display

Beginning April 11, three rare artifacts were added to the Newseum’s popular "Manhunt: Chasing Lincoln’s Killer" exhibit.

For Limited Display April 11-26:

• • A fragment from the dress worn by "Our American Cousin" lead actress Laura Keene that was stained with Lincoln’s blood.
• • A lock of Lincoln’s hair framed with dried flowers from his coffin.

April 11-Feb. 2010:

• • A rare bronze set of Lincoln life mask and hands, created by noted sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in the 1880s directly from the 1860 plaster life mask and hands by Leonard Volk.

Return to "Manhunt: Chasing Lincoln's Killer"

Happy Birthday Newseum!

WASHINGTON — One year after its grand opening on April 11, 2008, the Newseum has quickly become one of the most sought-after destinations in the nation’s capital.

More than 700,000 people have visited the 250,000-square-foot museum since it opened on historic Pennsylvania Avenue. President Barack Obama is a repeat visitor. Actor George Clooney charmed a sold-out house. And on any given day at any given hour, the tweets are atwitter with celebrity sightings and special programs at the world’s most interactive museum of news:

• • “Obama at the Newseum!” — 1:30 p.m., Feb. 4, 2009.
  
• • “Val Kilmer is at the Newseum!” — 8:37 a.m., Feb. 13, 2009.
  
• • “Arnold Schwarzenegger will be at the Newseum Sunday a.m. to tape an interview for ABC News ‘This Week.’” — 10:48 a.m., Feb. 20, 2009.
  
• • “BET covering the State of the Union from Newseum Tuesday.” — 9:45 a.m., Feb. 23, 2009.
  
• • “Find out what ‘Rosebud’ really means in ‘Citizen Kane.’” — 12:46 p.m., Feb. 25, 2009.
  
• • “Conan O’Brien currently touring the Newseum!” — 8:36 a.m., March 3, 2009.

To celebrate our first anniversary, the Newseum looks back at some of the people, events and programs that helped make the first year a rousing success. 

'First Dogs' Poll

Visitors Pull for Shelter Dog

By Bridget Gutierrez, Newseum exhibits writer

WASHINGTON — Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon B. Johnson both owned mutts, but will the next First Dog be as humble? If the choice were left to Newseum visitors, the answer would be yes. A shelter dog is winning the museum’s "Presidential Pooch" poll, paws-down.

Since voting began in mid-November 2008, 37,192 votes have been cast in the election — part of the Newseum exhibit "First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Pets." On display until May 15, 2009, the exhibit features endearing photographs of nearly two dozen U.S. presidents with their furry friends, as well as the special canine election.

After Barack Obama promised his daughters a puppy during his victory speech in November, journalists seized on the story of the next First Dog. Newseum staffers decided to give visitors a say in the matter. According to the poll, they overwhelmingly prefer an adoption: The shelter dog has won 52 percent of the vote.

The election will continue until the new pet is in the White House. Please check back weekly for the latest tally.

Newspapers in Peril: What Would Jefferson Think?

By Gene Policinski, vice president, executive director, First Amendment Center

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

When Thomas Jefferson made this observation in 1787, he made two assumptions.

One, that there would be newspapers. And two, that those papers would contain both a critical mass of information that citizens of a democracy would use in governing themselves, and serve as a check and balance on the power and reach of government itself.

More than two centuries later, both of Jefferson’s assumptions are being put to the test.

• • The economic model that supported the mass circulation newspaper industry more than 100 years is failing — or has failed, some say — for a variety of reasons.
• • As major news organizations cut back, retire or fire experienced and higher-salaried staff and pull back on coverage of institutions in favor of softer stories, there is reason to fear that the fabled "watchdog" role of the news media is endangered.

But if we’re going to put that Jeffersonian observation to a 21st century test, let’s also update the context.

A creative soul, Jefferson no doubt would have embraced the Internet and earlier, broadcast media. He would have valued the Web’s global information opportunities and its great potential to bring information and commentary directly to citizens.

As print media evolve — a more accurate evaluation than the oft-written death notices — we are seeing new methods of journalism gain traction: shared news coverage of local institutions among print, broadcast and Web news sources; split "publication days" during the week between print and online editions; and multimedia mixes that link bloggers and videographers to mainstream media.

Do the online news operations have the reach, depth or credibility of their older counterparts? The answer is, "not yet." From ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest; to the Huffington Post, a blog-turned-major news outlet; to online news aggregators like Google and Yahoo; to local bloggers and freelancers, we have access to as much information — if not more — than ever.

In Jefferson’s time, citizens got and evaluated news in a very personal way — as much from friends, colleagues and neighbors as from the "journals of opinion" that were the news publications of the era. In an ironic twist, from Twitter and blogs to Facebook and MySpace, we increasingly are returning to that same kind of personal, shared news experience.

A proposal by Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., similar to the Newspaper Revitalization Act, would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Whether Cardin’s proposal is a good idea or not, the goal for Americans ought to be to preserve a free and independent media, whether the medium is newsprint or electrons. As our methods of gaining news and information move from the village green to the village screen, the enduring theme is the preeminent value to our democracy that Jefferson placed on journalism and a free press.

For information on other First Amendment issues, please visit www.firstamendmentcenter.org and the Newseum’s Cox Enterprises First Amendment Gallery.

Remembering Jack Heselden

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

John E. Heselden, a veteran news executive with Gannett Co. and an influential trustee and valued friend of the Freedom Forum, died April 1, 2009, in Towson, Md. He was 88.

Heselden, a native of Syracuse, N.Y., witnessed the evolution of the Freedom Forum over a span of 42 years from a small office in Rochester, N.Y., where it was the Frank E. Gannett Newspaper Foundation, to the Washington, D.C.-based Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people.

The Freedom Forum is the major funder of the operations of the Newseum, which will celebrate its first anniversary in the nation’s capital on April 11. Heselden would have turned 89 that day.

"Jack’s longtime commitment was underscored by his good instincts, clear analysis and the ability to offer a few well chosen words at just the right time," said Charles Overby, chairman and CEO of the Freedom Forum. "The staff loved Jack because he noticed the little things that made a difference, as well as the big things."

Heselden’s distinguished career began in Rochester in 1955 with Gannett Newspapers, where he was assistant to the general manager in labor and personnel work. During his 30 years with the organization, Heselden was promoted to a number of key executive positions, including publisher of USA Today and deputy chairman of Gannett, a position he held from 1983 until his retirement two years later.

In his 1987 book "The Making of McPaper," former USA Today editor and Newseum president Peter Prichard called Heselden "a friendly bear of a man who … had a sure instinct for what would help the bottom line. He would pick and prod at a publisher’s budget, saving a few dollars here, a few dollars there. He hit a few newspapers every afternoon, and pretty soon it added up to millions."

USA Today founder and former Gannett chairman Al Neuharth described Heselden as a "compromiser" during open debates who "was always ready to step in just before polarization peaked." In his 1989 autobiography "Confessions of an S.O.B.," Neuharth also noted Heselden’s "firm belief in equal-opportunity programs," which was reflected in Gannett’s commitment to hiring and promoting women and minorities throughout the company. That legacy lives on at the Freedom Forum, as well.

"He was not a household name because he shunned the spotlight, but he was a giant in the newspaper business," Overby said.

Heselden is survived by his beloved wife of 67 years, Ethel, and daughters Barbara and Nancy.

Newseum Honors 62 Journalists

WASHINGTON — Family and friends of 62 journalists who died in 2008 reporting the news gathered at the Newseum March 30 for a somber rededication ceremony of the Journalists Memorial.

Related Video: Watch clips of the rededication ceremony and panel discussion.

Online Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial:
Browse the names of journalists who have lost their lives on the job.

Destination: Newseum

Find out what makes the Newseum one of the most exciting attractions in the nation’s capital. With 15 theaters, 14 galleries, weekly programs and special events, you never know who you’ll bump into at the world’s most interactive museum.

A Starr Is Mourned

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Yikes! Art imitates life.

In a sign of the times, Brenda Starr, one of the most glamorous and adventurous fictional reporters since Clark Kent, will join the ranks of real and comic-strip journalists who have lost their jobs in the past year.

Starr, a reporter-turned-editor who has worked in her fictional newsroom since 1940, is the latest victim of the budget cuts that have hit news organizations both in the real world and on the comics page. Her furlough starts on March 28. Starr’s boss, B. Babbitt Bottomline, summed up the reason.

"I can’t afford to pay you anymore," he said.

Last October, Doonesbury’s Rick Redfern, an investigative reporter at The Washington Post, was offered the paper’s "best buyout package" after 33 years on the job. Redfern is now a blogger.

Years ago, when Starr and Redfern were novice reporters, jobs in comic-strip newsrooms lasted practically a lifetime. But with real daily newspapers rapidly dying and many going digital, job security — even in the comics — has become a thing of the past.

"Brenda Starr" was created 69 years ago by Dale Messick, who is believed to be the first American woman to draw a syndicated comic strip. After Messick retired in 1980, the comic strip was written by a series of women, including Ramona Fradon, Linda Sutter and June Brigman. The syndicated comic strip is currently penned by Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich, whose own company, the Tribune Co., filed for bankruptcy protection last year.

What’s next for the redheaded Starr? Will she start a blog like Redfern or spend more time with daughter Starr Twinkle St. John? The world waits.

In the meantime, read about Starr and the history of other comic-strip characters in the Newseum’s permanent exhibit "The Funny Pages."

The Real News in Fake News

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

What’s wrong with this picture?

CNBC financial analyst Jim Cramer being grilled for nearly 20 minutes — Mike Wallace–style — on a fake news show by a popular comedian commonly known — Walter Cronkite–style — as "the most trusted man in fake news."

Cramer’s widely anticipated March 12 faceoff with Jon Stewart on Stewart’s popular "Daily Show" was promoted like a boxing match. And if morning-after punditry and the number of hits on "The Daily Show" Web site were any indication, Stewart was the clear winner.

With this exchange, the fine line between news and entertainment became much thinner and a bit more blurry in this high-definition, digital-news world. Stewart’s stinging criticism of the "snake oil" peddled by Cramer and his financial network has transformed Stewart into a national ombudsman with a jabbing punch line that rarely misses its mark.

The last "newsman" to have that much clout was a real one — CBS News’s Cronkite. From 1963 until he retired in 1981, "Uncle Walter" was considered by his loyal viewers to be "the most trusted man in America." When he ended each broadcast with "And that’s the way it is" — his signature sign-off — Americans believed they had been given the true facts.

When Cronkite visited South Vietnam in February 1968 and, in a rare broadcast editorial after he returned, said that the United States could not win the war, even President Lyndon B. Johnson took notice.

"If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America," said Johnson, who later announced he would not seek re-election.

Stewart has been in this ring before. In October 2004 during a guest appearance on CNN’s "Crossfire," he called the political talk show’s format "partisan hackery." In the fallout that followed, the show was canceled a year later. CNN president Jonathan Klein agreed with Stewart’s criticism.

"I think he made a good point about the noise level of these types of shows, which does nothing to illuminate the issues of the day," Klein said.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, 12 percent of viewers ages 18 to 29 said they regularly got their campaign news from comedy TV shows such as Stewart’s. The week of the Cramer exchange, Stewart’s "Daily Show" audience was 2.3 million.

With Stewart’s growing influence, the reality for journalists caught in his crossfire could well be, "If I’m mocked by Stewart, I’ve lost my credibility."

And that, as Cronkite would say, is the way it is.

An exhibit on the impact of entertainment news on mainstream news and reporting is currently displayed in the Newseum’s News Corporation News History Gallery.

Remembering Leonore Annenberg

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Leonore Annenberg — philanthropist, widow of billionaire publisher and broadcaster Walter H. Annenberg and a founding partner of the Newseum — died March 12, 2009, in Rancho Mirage, Calif. She was 91.

Both Leonore and Walter Annenberg had distinguished careers in public service. He served as ambassador to Great Britain for five years, and she was chief of protocol for the White House under President Ronald Reagan.

For the past seven years, Leonore Annenberg was president and chairman of the Annenberg Foundation, which was established in 1989 to advance the public well-being through improved communication. As a principal means of achieving its goal, the foundation encourages the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge. The private foundation succeeded the Annenberg School at Radnor, Pa., which was founded in 1958 by Walter, who died in 2002.

For 26 years, Leonore Annenberg served on the Committee for the Preservation of the White House and was a tireless patron of the arts.

In 2007, the Annenberg Foundation donated $15 million to the Newseum, which named its 535-seat theater the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Theater.

"My husband, Walter, dedicated his life as a publisher, broadcaster, diplomat and philanthropist to communication, education and public service," Annenberg said of the donation. "The Newseum will provide an exciting new venue for visitors of all ages to learn about the rich history of the communication world and the importance of a free press in all societies."

Shelby Coffey, a Newseum trustee and Freedom Forum senior fellow, called Annenberg "a great lady and a great supporter of the Newseum."

According to Coffey, she called directly from California to express her support for the interactive museum, which opened in the nation’s capital in April 2008.

"She said [the Newseum] was just the sort of place the ambassador would have loved," Coffey said. "She was one of a kind and will be greatly missed."

From the Newseum Collection

Blogging Slippers

Ana Marie Cox was one of the first nationally known bloggers, serving as editor of the political blog "Wonkette" in 2004. "Wonkette" was a sometimes racy mix of Washington, D.C., gossip and policy issues that Cox, clad in pajamas and slippers, wrote from an office in her home. She relinquished her editorship in 2006.

When Newseum curators approached Cox about donating tools of the blogging trade, she suggested computer equipment. But our curators believed that bedroom slippers — or perhaps Cox’s pajamas — more readily highlighted the egalitarian realm of blogging. And what suggests commonality more than a pair of bedroom slippers?

Cox’s slippers are on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

Event Archive:
"Wonkette" founder Ana Marie Cox discussed political blogging and Internet journalism at the Newseum on Sunday, March 22, 2009. More >

Going Digital: The Next Generation of News

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Related Video: Digital Newspapers: The New Reality

The list of names on the newspaper tombstone keeps growing as more and more dailies write their own obituaries and thousands of journalists lose their jobs.

The latest casualty: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The paper folds March 17, 2009, after 146 years. Primary cause of death: the Internet. Secondary causes: poor circulation and dwindling advertising.

Those same causes killed the 149-year-old  Rocky Mountain News  on Feb. 27, 2009, and the 126-year-old Cincinnati Post on Dec. 31, 2007. The Post's  "Farewell Edition" carried the headline "–30 –" which in newspaper parlance means "the last" or "the end."

Newspapers in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Tucson barely subsist on life support. Other publications, such as The Christian Science Monitor, The Capital Times in Madison, Wis., and U.S. News & World Report, have given up the struggle altogether and have gone strictly digital. The switch to all-digital for the Post-Intelligencer begins March 18, making it the largest daily in the country to print solely online. In April 2009, the Monitor will publish a print edition only on weekends. U.S. News will stay in print with a monthly magazine but will charge a weekly on-line fee.

Printed news has been dying a slow death for years as more Americans, according to a Pew Research Center survey, get their news on the Internet. The Internet can transmit news faster than any newspaper ever could, and, with the exception of a few publications, content is free. Since 1990, daily newspaper circulation has dropped nearly 20 percent, from 62.3 million to 51 million in 2007.

With news being delivered through cell phones, "smart phones" and portable electronic devices, door-to-door service may soon be a thing of the past. The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press are cutting home delivery to just three days a week.

A new exhibit in the Newseum’s Digital News Gallery explores the next generation of news gathering and dissemination and what effect the changes may have on journalists and the news industry. A seven-minute video produced by the Newseum — "Digital Newspapers: The New Reality" — accompanies the exhibit.

The frequently updated Digital News Gallery, which is an integral part of the Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery, also features timely artifacts that explore the impact of digital technology on news.

Digital Newspapers: The New Reality

News printed on paper is giving way to news delivered digitally, wherever, whenever and however you want it.

Related Story: Going Digital: The Next Generation of News

First Amendment Gallery Showcases Free Speech

LL Cool J gives a shout out for freedom of speech and the Newseum’s First Amendment Gallery.

Get a Bird’s-Eye View in 'Press Box' Film

Sportscaster Ahmad Rashad is a fan of the Newseum’s film about sports reporting that shows daily in the Sports Theater.

Cherry Blossoms Announced for April

WASHINGTON — The peak blooming days in 2009 for Washington’s cherry blossoms will be April 3-9, according to Rob DeFeo, chief horticulturalist for the National Park Service.

DeFeo made the announcement March 3 at the Newseum. The blooming period typically lasts for 14 days. In 2008, the blooming period lasted for 17 days. Newseum visitors can report on the cherry blossoms in the popular "Be a TV Reporter" interactive.

First Amendment Challenge: Who Owns Obama’s Image?

By Gene Policinski, vice president, executive director, First Amendment Center

A legal dispute over a famed poster of then-senator Barack Obama goes to the heart of a very modern-era debate over what is "fair use" of images that are readily available on the Internet.

Artist Shepard Fairey developed a poster of Obama that was widely used during the 2008 presidential campaign that was based on what most agree was a photograph taken in 2006 by an Associated Press freelance photographer. Fairey said he found the image during a Google search.

Fairey and Obey Giant Art, Inc. — owned by the artist and his wife, Amanda — sued the AP earlier this month, asking a federal court to protect him from copyright claims being raised by the news organization. The dispute revolves around a complex part of copyright law called "fair use" and whether Fairey’s artistic work was "derivative" or "transformative."

If the artwork is deemed "derivative," a court might conclude that Fairey owes money to the AP (which asserts that it owns the photo) or to the freelancer. The argument: The photo, showing Obama with his head slightly tilted upward and looking out, is the exact angle and image in the freelancer’s photo. Sure, Fairey added colors and replaced the original Stars and Stripes flag background, but the image is essentially Obama as shown in the photo.

If the artwork is deemed "transformative," a court might conclude it falls under "fair use" and is protected under copyright law. The argument: The artwork goes far beyond the photo by means of artistic efforts — color, shading, etc. As such, it meets conditions of copyright exemption — that is, only a portion of the original image was used, and the poster and stickers that Fairey produced were used differently than the use of the original photo.

In some ways, the dispute echoes an issue raised in the 1960s by artistic works produced by pop-era artist Andy Warhol that were based on the iconic Campbell’s soup red-and-white can. No lawsuit was filed in that instance.

For information on other First Amendment issues, please visit www.firstamendmentcenter.org and the Newseum’s Cox Enterprises First Amendment Gallery.

Remembering Paul Harvey

By Bridget Gutierrez, Newseum exhibits writer

Broadcasting legend Paul Harvey made his radio debut in Tulsa, Okla., in 1933, playing guitar, reading commercials and sometimes news. With a commanding voice, Harvey went on to inform and entertain generations of American listeners. Harvey died Feb. 28, 2009, at a Phoenix hospital. He was 90.

Known for his homespun phrasing, exuberant delivery and dramatic pauses, Harvey’s top-rated news, commentary and feature programs attracted a nationwide audience. He spent more than 50 years broadcasting on ABC Radio Networks, where his 15-minute morning and noon shows reached millions of listeners. Based in Chicago, he spent nearly his entire career in the Midwest, which he credited with keeping him grounded in populist views.

Radio executives considered him irreplaceable. In 2000, already in his 80s, Harvey signed a 10-year, $100 million contract.

Reuters summed up his appeal in a 1989 dispatch: "In a broadcast era dominated by television news, Harvey is a survivor from an age when a voice, not a haircut, was a newscaster’s signature."

Rocky Mountain News Stops the Presses

By John Maynard, Newseum Exhibits Writer

Just two months shy of its 150th anniversary, the Rocky Mountain News published its last edition on Feb. 27, 2009.

Colorado’s oldest newspaper, known by locals as simply "The Rocky," is the latest newspaper to fall victim to changes in the news marketplace and a struggling economy.

The Rocky’s final front-page headline read "Goodbye, Colorado."

The newspaper, owned by media company E.W. Scripps, lost $16 million last year and was put up for sale in December. Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Scripps, said that despite a three-month search, his company failed to find a buyer.

"Today the Rocky Mountain News, long the leading voice in Denver, becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges," Boehne said in a statement.

Like other newspapers, the Rocky Mountain News saw circulation and advertising revenue drop in the wake of competition from the Internet.

Hearst announced recently that it is putting two of its papers, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, up for sale. Gannett said it will cease publication of the Tucson (Ariz.) Citizen in March if it cannot find a buyer.

The Denver Post, which becomes the city’s only major newspaper, will hire some reporters from the Rocky Mountain News, but more than 200 newsroom employees will lose their jobs.

The Rocky was first published in 1859 and was purchased by E.W. Scripps in 1926. In 2000, the newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography for coverage of the Columbine High School shootings. The newspaper won again in 2003 for breaking news photography for coverage of the Colarado wildfires. It picked up two more Pulitzers in 2006 for feature writing and feature photography -- both for a series on Colorado Marines who had fought and died in Iraq.

Those photos can be seen in the Newseum’s Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery.

A Chimp and a Controversial Cartoon. Free Speech or Censorship?

By Gene Policinski, vice president, executive director, First Amendment Center

The controversy over an editorial cartoon printed Feb.18 in the New York Post is a good example of how the First Amendment protects the free speech rights of all sides in a dispute — at least until the government gets involved.

At issue is a cartoon showing a chimpanzee that had been shot dead by two police officers, leaving two obvious bullet holes in the animal’s chest. One officer is saying, "They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

The cartoon by Sean Delonas was published about a week after Congress adopted President Barack Obama’s much-debated economic recovery legislation and a few days after a chimpanzee mauled a woman in Connecticut and later was shot to death by a police officer.

Post editors and Delonas said the image was intended to link those two news events in a satirical reference to the slipshod method in which the economic legislation had been adopted. But to many Americans — particularly African Americans — the cartoon was a racist image of Obama. To others, it was an oblique, if not overt, call for presidential assassination. Still others faulted it for making light of the attack, with the victim still undergoing intensive medical treatment.

The First Amendment’s provision for a free press certainly protected the Post’s right to publish the cartoon. But within hours, the amendment’s provisions for free speech, as well as assembly and petition, also came into play. In New York and elsewhere, Post editors, Delonas and Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation which owns the newspaper, were condemned as racists. Pickets appeared in front of the newspaper’s headquarters.

The Post initially defended the cartoon as a satire about Washington politics. On Feb. 24, Murdoch accepted responsibility and personally apologized to "any reader who felt offended and even insulted."

Political cartoons have had a long and controversial history in America.

• • An early engraving by Paul Revere depicted armed British troops firing point-blank on unarmed colonials during the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770. The factually inaccurate print was circulated widely throughout the colonies weeks after the incident and is considered significant in spurring anti-British sentiment.
  
  
• • In the 1870s, Thomas Nast’s biting cartoons in Harper’s Weekly magazine about political corruption established the modern editorial cartoon genre. A Sept. 30, 1871, cartoon portrayed catholic bishops as crocodiles crawling up on a riverbank to attack American families.

But cartoons and illustrations of African Americans uniquely touch the bitter U.S. history of race relations. Past portrayals used apes and monkeys and were replete with drawings that employed gross distortions of facial characteristics.

The nation’s founders envisioned free speech rights as providing for a robust and lively exchange of views. But when some critics called for a review of Murdoch’s application to the Federal Communications Commission to waiver its restrictions on owning a certain number of broadcast and print outlets in a single city, they raised the specter of government-as-censor — and that’s in direct opposition to what the First Amendment preserves and protects.

There is nothing in the 45 words of the First Amendment that require Americans to speak politely, civilly, positively or negatively, or in good taste. The amendment protects the speech of those whose words — or images — repel or please American sensibilities.

In fact, the First Amendment is predicated on the idea that disputes like the one over the Post cartoon are best settled through free and open exchange — the "marketplace of ideas" — rather than through censorship.

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis noted in a 1927 opinion: "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, [then] the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."

For information on other First Amendment issues, please visit www.firstamendmentcenter.org.

Former President Clinton Visits Newseum

Former President Bill Clinton was a participant at the National Clean Energy Project Feb. 23 that was held at the Newseum’s Knight Conference Center. He was later interviewed by CNBC’s Rebecca Quick, co-anchor of "Squawk Box."

Slideshow: You Never Know Who You’ll See at the Newseum

You Never Know Who You’ll See at the Newseum

WASHINGTON — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in town for the three-day National Governors Association meeting, was the guest Feb. 22 on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." The ABC show is broadcast every Sunday morning at the Newseum.

Former President Bill Clinton was a participant at the National Clean Energy Project Feb. 23 that was held at the Newseum’s Knight Conference Center. He was later interviewed by CNBC’s Rebecca Quick, co-anchor of "Squawk Box."

Video: Former President Clinton Visits Newseum

News of Lincoln’s Death Reported in Rare Edition

By Kathryn Wilmot, Newseum curatorial specialist

Near the end of the Civil War on April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln attended the play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. At approximately 10:15 p.m., Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth stepped into the president’s box and fired one fatal shot to the back of Lincoln’s head.

News of this great tragedy quickly spread via telegraph to newspapers across the country. The New York Herald issued numerous editions on April 15, 1865, informing the public of Lincoln’s rapidly deteriorating condition. Six versions of these editions are part of the Newseum’s collection of historic newspapers, including a rare, four-page “Extra” that told of Lincoln’s demise at 8:45 a.m. — more than an hour earlier than other editions.

The front page of this “Extra” contains a telegram written by Edwin A. Stanton, the secretary of war, to Maj. Gen. John Dix.

“Abraham Lincoln died this morning twenty-two minutes after seven o’clock,” the telegram stated.

This edition of the Herald is currently on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery. A new exhibit on Lincoln’s death, “Manhunt: Chasing Lincoln’s Killer,” is open Feb. 14 through Dec. 2009.

During Civil War, Lincoln Sidestepped First Amendment

By Ronald K.L. Collins, First Amendment scholar, Freedom Forum

Once the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln allowed his critics — including Northerners opposed to the war, known as "Copperheads" — wide latitude in railing against his policies. Thus, the "Copperhead press" was routinely vitriolic in its protests. And yet, voices of dissent were often tolerated.

There were, however, instances in which Lincoln found it necessary to abridge the First Amendment. While some may criticize Lincoln, none can question the unique and daunting challenges facing him.

Suspending the Great Writ

On April 27, 1861, Lincoln, fearful of Southern troops overtaking the capital, suspended the writ of habeas corpus and declared martial law. Shortly afterward, Union soldiers captured John Merryman, a cavalryman who had burned bridges and destroyed telegraph lines. Merryman contested his military detention. A federal court upheld his claim. Lincoln, however, ignored the order and continued to seize and hold adversaries subject only to the constraints of military law. Insofar as all constitutional rights were suspended, all First Amendment rights were likewise suspended.

The Temperate President and His Intemperate General

In September 1862, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, which drew considerable opposition from rebels and anti-war Copperheads. These newspapers lashed out against the president, tagging his proclamation "bloody" and "barbarous." With increasing frequency, more and more newspapers opposed the president’s proclamation. That in turn fueled new opposition, sometimes treasonous, to the Union effort.

Lincoln appointed Gen. Ambrose Burnside to oversee Ohio. In Burnside’s view, any criticism of the president was treasonous. He thus issued an order that warned that "declaring sympathies for the enemy" was a punishable offense. Burnside then went after anti-war protesters, most notably former Ohio congressman Clement Vallandigham, a rabid Copperhead and a vigorous defender of states’ rights. Burnside ordered Vallandigham arrested and charged him with uttering "disloyal sentiments and opinions."

A military tribunal convicted Vallandigham, who was sentenced to "close confinement" until the war’s end. Lincoln commuted the punishment to banishment to the Confederate states. Later, Burnside closed down the Chicago Times, which had been critical of Lincoln and supportive of Vallandigham. Lincoln urged Burnside to be less aggressive and to try to find some middle ground. Lincoln directed that the Chicago Times be allowed to resume publication.

Lincoln Loses His Patience

By May 1864, Lincoln’s patience with the Copperhead press ran out. What triggered his wrath was a bogus item that appeared in two New York papers — the Journal of Commerce and the World. A fake story reported a presidential proclamation that claimed Lincoln was about to draft 400,000 men. Lincoln ordered the two newspapers shut down and their publishers imprisoned. The Independent Telegraph System, which dispersed the story, was taken over by the military.

While Lincoln’s wartime First Amendment record is certainly controversial, it is nonetheless remarkable how much restraint he exercised in the face of truly nation-threatening challenges.

To read the complete version of this story, please visit www.firstamendmentcenter.org. A new exhibit on Lincoln’s death, “Manhunt: Chasing Lincoln’s Killer,” opens Feb. 14 through Dec. 2009.

Ron Collins is co-author with David M. Skover of "The Trials of Lenny Bruce" (Sourcebooks, 2002)

Back to the Future of the Penny Press

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

A little more than 175 years ago in 1833, New Yorkers woke up with The Sun — a new newspaper peddling a new idea: Common news for common folk, cheap at just a penny.

Printer Benjamin Day was the founder of the country’s first “penny paper.” His recipe of scoops, human-interest stories, tall tales and grisly crimes helped lure average readers to a medium that was once enjoyed largely by the upper crust.

One Sun story — a fantastic tale of batlike creatures living on the moon, discovered by astronomers in Africa using a huge telescope — set a world-record daily circulation of 19,000 in 1835. By 1870, another penny paper, The New York Herald, had the highest circulation — 77,000 copies a day — of any newspaper in the United States.

Fast forward to 2009, where decreased advertising, weak newsstand sales and dwindling subscriptions have forced a growing number of newspapers out of business. Scholars and journalists are offering revolutionary ideas on how to save the dailies from oblivion.

Some editors have contemplated printing solely online, where the sun never sets on the 24-hour news cycle, and content that was once free and available to everyone can potentially be accessed for — guess what? — pennies.

The 21st-century term for that 19th-century idea is called micropayment, a system where readers pay a small fee — practically pennies — for each story they click on. In other words, the penny press with a modem.

For years, The Wall Street Journal has charged for online content. The Christian Science Monitor and U.S. News and World Report are reportedly developing online news for a fee. Perhaps other newspapers will soon follow. Whatever makes cents.

In the meantime, copies of the original penny papers — the Sun and the Herald — are on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery. Learn more about the history of online media in the Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery.

And Justice For All: NAACP at 100

By Lesette R. Heath, special programs coordinator

In early 1909, a group of black and white activists gathered in a New York apartment with a daunting task before them: how to end the racial discrimination levied against black Americans?

On Feb. 12 — President Abraham Lincoln’s 100th birthday — the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was born. It remains the nation’s oldest champion for civil rights. The date of the organization’s founding was intentional.

"Besides being a day for rejoicing, [Lincoln’s birthday] should be one of taking stock of the nation’s progress since 1865," said Mary White Ovington, a suffragist, journalist and one of the NAACP’s founders. "How far has it lived up to the obligations imposed upon it by the Emancipation Proclamation?"

The answer was not a promising one. In 1908, the bloody race riots that erupted in Springfield, Ill., served as the catalyst for forming the NAACP. Joining Ovington in her crusade were fellow journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett, physician Henry Moskowitz, newspaper editor Oswald Garrison Villard, labor reformer William English Walling, noted scholar W.E.B. DuBois, and others.

DuBois became editor of The Crisis, the organization’s monthly magazine established in 1910 that is still published today. Under his leadership, The Crisis became known as "the voice of militant black America" and addressed all forms of discrimination with editorial assaults on the Ku Klux Klan, the South’s ugly tradition of lynching and President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to segregate the federal government. A 1910 edition of The Crisis is on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

The NAACP’s legal arm took on notable people and institutions in its fight against injustice. In 1954, it won one of its biggest court battles with Brown v. the Board of Education. Member Rosa Parks also sparked the 1955 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott, which led to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In 2000, organizers held "The Great March" in Columbia, S.C., to protest the flying of the Confederate flag.

The inauguration of the country’s first black president in 2009 holds special significance as the NAACP turns 100. As current NAACP president Ben Jealous recently noted in The Seattle Medium, a black newspaper, though people are still adversely affected by race in America, Barack Obama’s presidency represents "a culmination of a long march for justice."

The Beatles in America: We Loved Them, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

By Ann Rauscher, Newseum exhibits editor

The time: 1:20 p.m., Feb. 7, 1964. The place: Kennedy International Airport in New York. The scene: Pandemonium.

When Pan Am Flight 101 from London touched down and four mop-topped English musicians from Liverpool emerged from the plane, they were greeted by 3,000 screaming teenagers, 200 reporters and photographers, and more than 100 of New York’s finest, trying to maintain order. Beatlemania had arrived in America.

The Beatles — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — were newsmakers from the moment they stepped on American soil. As fans chanted "We want Beatles!" and photographers snapped pictures, the band members were ushered inside the airport for their first U.S. press conference.

The quartet’s cheeky humor was on full display at the press conference. After a reporter informed them that people in Detroit were handing out "Stamp Out the Beatles" stickers, McCartney said, "Yeah, well, we’re bringing out a Stamp Out Detroit campaign." When asked why they thought their music was so exciting to fans, Lennon replied, "If we knew, we’d form another group and be managers."

But the press coverage of the group’s arrival in New York was not the first time Americans were exposed to the Beatles. Time and Newsweek were among the first U.S. publications to take notice of the Beatlemania craze sweeping England. Both magazines ran articles in mid-November 1963, after the Beatles played a command performance before British royalty in London.

Newsweek called their sound "one of the most persistent noises heard over England since the air-raid sirens were dismantled." Time’s assessment of their music: "Their songs consist mainly of "Yeh!" screamed to the accompaniment of three guitars and a thunderous drum."

Reporters in the London bureaus of the U.S. broadcast networks also witnessed the hysteria and prepared reports on the phenomenon. NBC’s "Huntley-Brinkley Report" aired a four-minute segment on the Beatles the evening of Nov. 18, 1963.

A story on the group ran on the "CBS Morning News With Mike Wallace" the morning of Nov. 22, but the network’s plans to repeat the segment that evening on Walter Cronkite’s newscast fell by the wayside a few hours later, when Cronkite reported the breaking news that shots had been fired at President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas. For nearly four days, all regular programming was canceled as the networks covered the death and funeral of the president.

The Beatles segment finally aired on the "CBS Evening News" on Dec. 10. Less than two months later, Walter Cronkite’s nightly newscast featured the Beatles’ triumphant arrival in New York. CBS viewers saw the Beatles again on Feb. 9, 1964, when the group performed live on "The Ed Sullivan Show," reaching a record-breaking audience of 73 million.

The Beatles revolutionized rock ‘n’ roll music in the 1960s and became an integral part of popular culture. Even after the band broke up in 1970, the press continued to cover individual band members. When John Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980, news coverage of his death rivaled that of a world leader. Two decades later, the news of George Harrison’s death from cancer in November 2001 made front pages around the world.

Excerpts from TV news coverage of the Beatles’ Feb. 7, 1964, arrival in New York and press conference at Kennedy Airport can be seen in the Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery. Newspaper front pages from the group’s first U.S. visit and the death of John Lennon are featured in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

On Booth’s Trail

James L. Swanson chronicles his lifelong interest in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, which resulted in the New York Times best-seller "Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer."

Return to "Manhunt: Chasing Lincoln's Killer"

Online Book Shop
• • "Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer" by James L. Swanson
  "Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer" is a fascinating tale of murder, intrigue, and betrayal. A gripping hour-by-hour account told through the eyes of the hunted and the hunters, this is history as you've never read it before.
• • "Chasing Lincoln’s Killer" by James L. Swanson
  Based on his bestselling adult book "Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer," this young people's version is an accessible look at the assassination of a president, and the pursuit and capture of his killer.

Newseum Kicks Off 2009 With a Bang

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama. George Clooney. Anderson Cooper. Shakira.

What do these superstars of politics, entertainment and the media have in common?

They were among the hundreds of top newsmakers who helped make the Newseum the place to be in January.

Video: President-elect Barack Obama at the Newseum

Where’s the Post-Dispatch-Democrat-Gazette-Herald?

"Why didn’t you include my hometown newspaper in your online exhibit?"

That is perhaps the No. 1 question asked by readers of the daily "Today’s Front Pages" exhibit. The answers are simple:

• • Some newspapers do not have the technological capability of transmitting their front pages electronically in the required format.
• • Some newspapers do not participate.

The good news is that the growing popularity of "Today’s Front Pages" has prompted more newspapers to include themselves in the online exhibit. More than 700 newspapers worldwide currently transmit their front pages daily to the Newseum.

View frequently asked questions we receive about "Today’s Front Pages" and the newest feature, "Today’s Top Ten."

Clooney, Small Have a ‘Good Night’ at the Newseum

WASHINGTON — George Clooney brought star power and charm to the second installment of the "Reel Journalism With Nick Clooney" film series at the Newseum on Monday, Jan. 26, 2009, with a sold-out screening of "Good Night, and Good Luck." The film series, co-produced by the Newseum and the American University School of Communication, is hosted by veteran newsman and American University journalist-in-residence Nick Clooney.

A freewheeling, humorous and insightful panel discussion with Nick, son George and Bill Small, chairman of news and documentary Emmys at the National Television Academy and the author of two award-winning books on the media, preceded the film screening.

The “Reel Journalism” series presents sometimes accurate and sometimes questionable depictions of journalists and journalism. It also provides a forum for discussing the important role of the press in a democratic society.

Upcoming movies include “Citizen Kane” and “All the President’s Men.”

Watch video clips of George Clooney, Nick Clooney and Bill Small discussing the film "Good Night, and Good Luck."

The Newseum from Dawn to Dusk

WASHINGTON — More than 25,000 people visited the Newseum during the inaugural weekend that began Jan. 17 and ended on Inauguration Day.

Visitors and A-list celebrities, as well as major broadcast, cable and radio news networks, took advantage of the Newseum’s prime location on America’s Main Street for live broadcasts, inaugural balls and to view the historic inaugural parade.

To commemorate the momentous event, the Newseum looks back at the people and events that led up to the historic day.

Preserving Newspaper Mementos: Tips For Safe Storage

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Just as his historic election as the first African-American president of the United States prompted a nationwide run on newspapers, President Barack Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20 forced publishers to print extra editions of the event to keep up with public demand. The challenge now for new collectors is to guarantee a long shelf life for their precious mementos.

The Newseum’s curatorial department preserves more than 35,000 historic newspapers and periodicals in its collection — some dating back to 1526 — and knows a thing or two about how to make sure these newspapers are protected for years to come. Here are answers to the frequently asked questions our curators received in the aftermath of Election Day.

How do I make sure my newspaper stays in good condition?

The most important safety tip is to make sure the newspapers are not exposed to light. Light damage is cumulative and irreversible. Avoid handling the newspaper as much as possible.

Will plastic wrap protect my newspaper?

No, not home or kitchen wrap. We recommend three ways to preserve your newspaper.

• • Store the newspaper in an acid-free “buffered” archival folder — also called a map/print folder because of its size. Today’s newspapers contain acidic wood pulp; buffering agents help slow their deterioration. Buy an archival folder large enough to store the newspaper unfolded and flat. Storing newspapers folded will result in eventual separation at the fold due to stress. Watch this video from February 2008 to see an example of an archival folder.
• • Place the newspaper in Melinex — a clear, stiff, inert polyester that acts as a support for paper materials. We suggest Melinex that is sealed on one long side. For extra protection, put the Melinex-sealed newspaper in an archival folder. Some suppliers offer archival folders with a Melinex cover already inside.
• • Put the newspaper in coated or uncoated acid-free newspaper boxes, preferably buffered, and large enough to store the newspaper flat. Coated boxes are more expensive, since they have a water-resistant finish.

Where can I buy Melinex, archival folders or newspaper boxes?

These products are not readily available in stores and can be purchased online through archival suppliers such as Gaylord Brothers, Light Impressions, Archival Methods, and Hollinger/Metal Edge. The products are expensive, but they will ensure that your newspaper is protected for a very long time.

Where should I store my newspaper?

The storage environment for newspapers should be moderate, without extreme fluctuations in temperature and humidity. Closet shelves are a good home option for storing newspapers. Attics and basements are less than ideal spaces for archival materials because of temperature and humidity variations.

Can I keep the newspaper with other collectibles?

Do not store the unprotected newspaper with or next to other acidic materials such as wood, cardboard, notebook paper, etc.

Is it OK to frame the newspaper for hanging?

Framing is OK, but it’s important to keep newspapers away from sunlight, moisture and insects. Use conservation quality glass or acrylic that filters out harmful UV light. Even if you use UV-filtered glass, do not place the framed newspaper in a sunny area. Make sure that the matting or backing is 100 percent cotton fiber — cotton rag matboard — and preferably buffered. Never place the newspaper on a cardboard backing. This will result in rapid deterioration. Most custom frame shops will have these materials available, so you may not have to buy them online.

Related topic: Extra! Extra! Newspaper Souvenirs Beat Web By a Landslide

Window on a Presidential Parade

WASHINGTON — The inaugural procession on America’s Main Street was filled with motorcades, marching bands and media. The Newseum’s large glass windows offered visitors a unique look at the historic parade.

Video Blog: Newseum Goers Witness History

The Newseum’s Sonya Gavankar shows the fun that visitors had as they took part in the historic proceedings on America’s main street.

More Inauguration Day video

Video Blog: Live From the Newseum

The Newseum’s unique communications systems and broadcast facilities make it home away from home for all the media covering the 44th inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Related Story: For Inauguration Day, Media Find Room With a View

'Cool' View: Crowds Brave Cold, Lines For a Place in History

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

WASHINGTON — Forty-five minutes after the Newseum’s 10 a.m. Inauguration Day opening, nearly 2,000 people had already streamed through the C Street entrance. Many, like Cheryl Clinton of Bowie, Md., withstood freezing temperatures and blustery winds to line up at 4 a.m.

"I wanted my children to have this experience," said Clinton, who was visiting the Newseum for the first time. "How could I not come?"

Fifteen-year-old Grace Barnes and her mother, Lynne Perri, who queued up at 6:10 a.m., bypassed the galleries and made a beeline for a choice spot at the glass windows that overlook the parade route on historic Pennsylvania Avenue.

"There was no way we were seeing the exhibits," Barnes said.

Crystal Crawford of Los Angeles, Calif., got through the doors just as Barack Obama was preparing to take the oath of office.

"The line was long, but it was worth the wait," she said. "I have such pride in the excellence of character, intelligence and humility of our new president."

For the past four days, the Newseum has been the place to be and be seen during Inauguration festivities. Online publisher Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post hosted an Inaugural Eve party that drew hundreds of A-list celebrities. Many of the major broadcast, cable and radio news networks — including ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC and NBC — have used the building for live broadcasts since Jan. 17.

"I saw Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos," Stacy Dussault of Bethesda, Md., said. "It was very cool."

Her husband, Joe, was impressed with the ceremony that was shown on the 40-foot-by-22-foot high-definition media screen.

"It was chilling. It was powerful," he said. "I feel like something huge has happened."

Several visitors applauded when a picture of the helicopter carrying former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush appeared on the screen.

"No disrespect, but you’ve got to go," said Crawford, who had a 6:45 p.m. flight back to Los Angeles soon after the parade.

"I’ve been crying half the day," said Fannell Matthews, who waited for Hampton University’s marching band to pass the Newseum. The Chicago native had mixed emotions about Obama’s presidency.

"We’re losing our senator for the United States. It’s a real sacrifice."

Visitors and Media Soak Up Inaugural Celebration

The Newseum hosts excited visitors and busy broadcasters as Barack Obama takes the oath of office to become the nation’s 44th president.

Video Blog: Best Seat in the 'House'

Most of the TV networks and other media outlets have staked out prime spots in the Newseum, which is situated in an ideal position along the inaugural parade route on Pennsylvania Avenue. The world’s most interactive museum has sweeping views of the U.S. Capitol and other Washington landmarks.

Newseum: The Place to Be for Inauguration

WASHINGTON — Hollywood celebrities and Washington politicos mingled at an Inauguration Eve party at the Newseum, thrown by Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington.

Video Blog: Night at the Newseum

The Newseum’s Sonya Gavankar takes a nocturnal stroll through the building to document some of the shenanigans as the staff hunkers down on Inauguration Eve.

Video Blog: CNN’s John King Pulls Back Curtain

The Newseum’s Frank Bond talks with CNN anchor John King about the new interactive, 3-D technology the cable news network is using. The Newseum is "media central" for most of the major networks.

For Inauguration Day, Media Find Room With a View

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

WASHINGTON — Location, location, location.

Between Jan. 17 and Inauguration Day, the Newseum, the interactive museum about news, will be a big part of the news, as major broadcast, cable and radio news networks use the building’s prime spot on historic Pennsylvania Avenue for live broadcasts of inaugural activities.

With its ideal position along the inaugural parade route and sweeping views of the U.S. Capitol and other Washington landmarks, the Newseum was a natural fit for networks seeking a place to set up shop.

"The Newseum will be inauguration central for this momentous political, social and media event," said Jack Hurley, the Newseum’s senior vice president for broadcasting. "Broadcasters will reach worldwide audiences because of the extraordinary technical infrastructure designed by our engineering team."

Organizations that will broadcast from the Newseum’s studios, terraces and galleries include ABC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC and NBC, NPR, New York’s WABC, Washington’s WJLA, WRC and local radio stations WHUR and WTOP.

One of the Newseum’s most popular exhibits is "Be a TV Reporter," where would-be reporters stand in front of a camera and read the news from a teleprompter. But with so many celebrity anchors, hosts and correspondents housed in one place, visitors will get a close-up look at how the professionals prepare the news.

"The Newseum has hosted U.S. presidents and foreign heads of state, prime ministers and royalty. During the inauguration, we will host newscasters and reporters seen and heard by millions. Our visitors will get a peek at how news is covered," Hurley said.

Related stories:
Video Blog: Live From the Newseum
Video Blog: CNN's John King Pulls Back Curtain
Newseum Part of History on America’s Main Street
First Things First: Facts About Presidential Inaugurations
Obama Visits the Newseum
Inauguration Weekend at the Newseum

King delivered a now-famous call for justice in 1963.

On Aug. 28, 1963, more than 200,000 Americans marched in the nation's capital, calling for the government to end social, economic and political inequality between blacks and whites. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech put a dramatic exclamation point on the day's events. Nearly 50 years after his speech, King’s dream is being realized.

FotoWeek DC, Newseum Announce New Contest

WASHINGTON — FotoWeek DC and the Newseum celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama by sponsoring fotobamaweek, a photography contest that is open to anyone in the world, including professional and amateur photographers, students and children.

The contest opens on Jan. 15, 2009, and ends March 15, 2009. All entries — taken with digital, film or cell phone cameras — must be submitted electronically by March 15. To enter, please visit www.fotoweekdc.org.

Other details:

• • The top 100 winning images, selected by the Newseum’s panel of judges, will be displayed at the Newseum.
• • The images will be published in a limited edition book sponsored by FotoWeek DC.
• • Grand prize winners will receive cash prizes totaling $5,000.
• • Winners will be announced on April 30.

FotoWeek DC is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to raise awareness of the role of photography in our world and to unite and strengthen the photography community in Washington.

President-elect Obama Returns to the Newseum

President-elect Barack Obama was the featured guest on an early taping of ABC’s "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" Jan. 10, 2009. The news show is taped each Sunday morning in the Knight Studio on Pennsylvania Avenue, as part of a partnership between ABC News and the Newseum. Obama first visited the Newseum in May of last year when he was a guest on the show. Watch a video as he exits the studio.

President-elect Barack Obama at the Newseum

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama was the featured guest on an early taping of ABC’s "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" Jan. 10, 2009. The news show is taped each Sunday morning in the Knight Studio on Pennsylvania Avenue, as part of a partnership between ABC News and the Newseum.

Photo Slideshow: President-elect Obama Returns to the Newseum

Advertisements on the Front Page: Old News

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

The trend continues.

In an effort to boost its bottom line, The Boston Globe became the latest major daily newspaper to sell ads on the front page. The New York Times carried its first front-page display ad on Jan. 5, 2009 — an ad for CBS that ran across the bottom of the page.

The Globe and Times join a growing list of dailies, including USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, that run ads on the front page. But front-page advertising is nothing new. 

"In the 18th and 19th centuries, newspapers frequently included advertisements on the front page, providing readers with information such as dry goods for sale, public auctions, descriptions of runaway servants or the sailing of commercial and passenger vessels," said Newseum curatorial specialist Kathryn Wilmot.

Some early U.S. newspapers even included "advertiser" as part of their names. Mastheads carried names such as The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser and Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser. Other names were the South-Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, The New York Packet and American Advertiser, Dunlap’s American Daily Advertiser and The Federal Gazette and Philadelphia Daily Advertiser.

One of the most infamous front-page ads appeared in the April 27, 1882, edition of Missouri’s Neosho Times, where a banner headline — "Jesse James Assassinated!" — trumpeted the notorious outlaw’s death. Readers expecting details of James’s slaying were greatly disappointed. The headline was merely a teaser. The text beneath the headline was part of a nearly full-page advertisement touting bargains and a "great clearance sale" at McElhany & Bro., a local store.

"In the dress goods department, we have all the newest, latest and most desirable styles out from the finest silk to the cheapest calico," the ad stated. "Our clothing and hat department is immense, and by looking through this department, you will be convinced of the fact that neither man nor boy can fail to be suited in style, make and price. … In conclusion, we will say, that it is no longer necessary to send abroad for anything you may need in our line for we assure you we have everything you may need." 

James’s death was covered on an inside page. 

The original issue of The Neosho Times is currently on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

Video Blog: Newseum Dresses Up for Obama's Inauguration

The Newseum is getting a special wrap to commemorate President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Senior exhibit manager Bryan Schultz explains the process.

First Things First: Facts About Presidential Inaugurations

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

At the beginning of his second term in 1805, Thomas Jefferson became the first president to participate in a tradition that has become a staple of presidential inaugurations: the inaugural procession on Pennsylvania Avenue. 

On Jan. 20, 2009, more than 200 years after Jefferson’s inaugural parade, Barack Obama will carry on the time-honored tradition as he takes his place in history as the nation’s first black president. Record crowds are expected in Washington for Obama’s inauguration, making his one of the most popular celebrations in the country’s history.  

As Washington and the nation prepares for the inauguration, the Newseum — located along the parade route on Pennsylvania Avenue — highlights some of the historic firsts surrounding presidential inaugurations.

• • 1845: James K. Polk’s inauguration was the first to be reported by telegraph. Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph, transmitted news of the ceremony to Baltimore from a telegraph set up on the inaugural platform at the U.S. Capitol.
• • 1897: William McKinley’s inaugural parade was the first to be recorded on movie film.
• • 1909: William Howard Taft’s wife, Helen, became the first first lady to ride in an inaugural parade with her husband from the Capitol to the White House.
• • 1921: Warren G. Harding became the first president to ride in an automobile to and from his inauguration.
• • 1925: Calvin Coolidge’s inaugural was the first to be broadcast nationally over radio. Some 25 million Americans listened; the Associated Press called it “the greatest audience ever addressed by any man.”
• • 1937: Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president inaugurated on Jan. 20, instead of March 4. His vice president, John Nance Garner, was the first to be sworn in on the same platform as the president.
• • 1949: Harry S. Truman’s inauguration and parade were the first to be televised. An estimated 10 million people watched the events. “Home Viewers Get All of Color, Pomp,” headlined the Chicago Daily Tribune.
• • 1961: John F. Kennedy’s inauguration was the first to be broadcast in color.
• • 1977: Jimmy Carter was the first president to walk from the Capitol to the White House after taking the oath of office.
• • 1981: Ronald Reagan’s inaugural ceremony was the first to be held on the West Front of the Capitol, rather than the East Front.

For his part, Obama will host a “Neighborhood Inaugural Ball,” an all-inclusive, first-of-its-kind celebration that will feature webcasting and text messaging to link neighborhoods across the country to the celebration in Washington. 

The history of Pennsylvania Avenue, including the events and people who made it famous, is featured in a permanent exhibit on the Hank Greenspun Terrace on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Related Links:
Inauguration Weekend at the Newseum
Newseum Part of History on America’s Main Street

Newseum Part of History on America’s Main Street

By Cathy Trost, director of exhibit development

The Newseum, rich in historical artifacts and stories, occupies land that has its own story to tell.

The site of the Newseum — Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, N.W., in downtown Washington — was occupied from 1826 to 1942 by the National Hotel, one of the most famous hotels of its era.

In April 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth took a room at the National Hotel, his favorite place to stay in Washington. Booth hated President Abraham Lincoln and longed to avenge the Confederate cause. On the evening of April 14, five days after the surrender at Appomattox that ended the Civil War, Booth shot and mortally wounded Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre, several blocks away.

While Lincoln lay dying, investigators searched Booth’s room at the National Hotel and found a letter that seemed to connect him to a plot against the president. Booth died in a shootout with federal agents 12 days after the assassination.

On April 19, Lincoln’s body was escorted down Pennsylvania Avenue by a large funeral procession. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated.

Booth’s brother later wrote a letter to President Andrew Johnson asking that the contents of Booth’s hotel room be returned to the family:

There is also (I am told) a trunk of his at the National Hotel. … it may contain relics of the poor misguided boy — which would be dear to his sorrowing mother, and of no use to anyone.

The National Hotel eventually closed and was demolished in 1942 to make way for a local government building. The Freedom Forum purchased the property from the District of Columbia in 2000 to relocate the Newseum there from its original location in Arlington, Va.

An exhibit on the history of "America’s Main Street," as well as a panoramic view of Washington landmarks, is on display on the Newseum’s Hank Greenspun Terrace on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Related Links:
Inauguration Weekend at the Newseum
First Things First: Facts About Presidential Inaugurations

The Year in Pictures at the Newseum

WASHINGTON — Since its grand opening April 11, 2008, the Newseum has been the scene for news makers and news-making events. Here is a photographic look back at some of the people and programs that helped make the Newseum the second hottest address on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Remembering Journalists We Lost

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

As 2008 comes to an end, the Newseum recognizes notable men and women who passed away this year and whose contributions to journalism will not be forgotten.

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925 - 2008)

As a magazine editor, syndicated columnist, prolific author and host of "Firing Line," William F. Buckley Jr. was a one-man media corporation. With his patrician bearing, arched eyebrows and a vocabulary loaded with obscure words, Buckley was considered a favorite conservative of liberals. The National Review, the magazine he founded in 1955, helped elevate conservative opinion into the political mainstream. Buckley died at his desk in his study. "He might have been working on a column," said his son.

Alvah H. Chapman Jr. (1921 - 2008)

Alvah H. Chapman Jr. was born into a newspaper family. He was chairman and CEO of Knight Ridder — formerly the parent company of The Miami Herald — for 13 years and believed that businesses had a responsibility to the communities they served. He led efforts to rebuild South Florida in 1992 after Hurricane Andrew, to house the homeless and to fight drug abuse. "You can’t publish a successful newspaper in a community that’s dying on the vine," he said.

Clay Felker (1928 - 2008)

Clay Felker launched New York magazine in 1968 with smart, sassy articles aimed at young, affluent and upwardly mobile readers. The magazine was a showcase for writers such as Tom Wolfe and Gloria Steinem whose articles embraced the "New Journalism" of the time. New York was copied in other cities, breathing new life into regional magazine publishing. "I’ve been criticized for being elitist," Felker once told The New York Times, "but that’s who … consumes print."

W. Mark Felt (1913 - 2008)

W. Mark Felt was perhaps the most famous anonymous source in journalism history. He was the mysterious informer known as "Deep Throat" who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard Nixon to resign. For more than 30 years, his identity was one of Washington’s best-kept secrets. Not until 2005 did Felt, second in command at the FBI at the time of Watergate, reveal his identity. "I’m the guy they used to call "Deep Throat," he told Vanity Fair magazine.

Mary Garber (1916 - 2008)

Winston-Salem Journal sportswriter Mary Garber was barred from membership in the Atlantic Coast Conference Sportswriters Association in the 1950s because she was a woman. Two decades later, she was its president. Garber covered almost every sport, often as the only woman. She called Jackie Robinson, the first black Major League Baseball player, "the most important influence" in her life. "I would look at how he kept his mouth shut and did his job as best he could with the belief that someday he would be accepted," she said. In 2005, she became the first woman to win the Red Smith Award, the highest honor given by the Associated Press Sports Editors.

Tom Gish (1926 - 2008)

Veteran reporter Tom Gish and his wife Pat bought The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., in 1957. The newspaper’s motto: "It Screams!" The crusading Gishes, considered rural America’s best journalists, survived boycotts and in time inspired laws limiting strip mining. When their office was destroyed by arson in 1974, the Gishes published from their home. The front page of the first published paper after the fire had a photo of the burned office, but the top story was about a local tax issue. "It Still Screams!" read the masthead.

Bill Headline (1931 - 2008)

CNN pioneer and veteran newsman Bill Headline had the perfect name for his profession. The former CBS News executive was CNN’s Washington bureau chief for 12 years, during which time he helped bring credibility to the young cable network that critics dubbed the Chicken Noodle Network. He said his work at CNN made him "happy as a clam." He retired from CNN in 1998 and was for two years executive director of the controversial Voter News Service, a now-defunct exit polling organization based in New York.

Jim McKay (1921 - 2008)

Horse racing was "Wide World of Sports" host Jim McKay’s favorite sport. But it was his place at center stage of a world drama at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich for which he is forever linked. When 11 Israeli athletes were taken hostage, McKay anchored 18 hours of field coverage. When the hostages were killed by Palestinian extremists, McKay’s grim words — "They’re all gone" — alerted the world. "I was full of emotion," said McKay, the first sportscaster to win an Emmy. "But when you are a professional, it is important to communicate what it is like, to capture the moment."

Nancy Hicks Maynard (1946 - 2008)

Trailblazer Nancy Hicks Maynard spent more than four decades improving news coverage of the black community. She and her husband, Robert, quit top newspaper jobs in the East and founded the Institute for Journalism Education (renamed the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education) in 1977 in Berkeley, Calif., which opened newsroom doors to journalists of color. In 1983 they bought the Oakland Tribune, making them the first African Americans to own a major daily newspaper. "No job in the world is better than being a newspaper publisher," said Maynard, who was also chair of the defunct Freedom Forum Media Studies Center.

Ike Pappas (1933 - 2008)

Ike Pappas covered the Vietnam War, the Kent State uprising and other major stories for CBS News in the 1960s, but it was his on-the-spot account of the surprised shooting of presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald for which he is best known. Pappas was among a group of reporters in the basement of the Dallas police station in 1963 when Oswald was being escorted to jail. Pappas had just asked Oswald a question when nightclub owner Jack Ruby pushed him aside and shot Oswald. "There’s a shot! Oswald has been shot!" Pappas reported live to the radio audience. He later testified at Ruby’s trial and before the Warren Commission.

Dith Pran (1942 - 2008)

Dith Pran was a translator and assistant to New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg in Cambodia in 1975 when the country fell to the brutal Khmer Rouge. Pran was imprisoned for four years, suffering severe beatings and subsisting on a teaspoon of rice a day. He escaped Cambodia in 1979, trekking 60 miles to Thailand. The critically acclaimed movie "The Killing Fields" chronicled his and Schanberg’s experiences. He moved to New York in 1980 and became a Times photographer. His theory of photojournalism: "You have to be a pineapple. You have to have a hundred eyes."

Tim Russert (1950 - 2008)

Tim Russert died doing what he loved: preparing for Sunday’s edition of "Meet the Press," where he had been the moderator since 1991. His aggressive but balanced interviewing style earned him the respect of fellow journalists and the politicians and celebrities he interviewed. His use of a low-tech eraser board to predict the key to winning the 2000 presidential elections — "Florida! Florida! Florida" — remains one of the most memorable events in political news coverage. Russert was a Newseum trustee.

Tony Snow (1955 - 2008)

Tony Snow said he felt stalked all his adult life by the threat of colon cancer, which killed his mother when he was 17. When his colon cancer recurred in 2007, two years after an initial diagnosis, the former newspaper editor and columnist, TV and radio host and White House press secretary handled the news publicly, candidly and with his customary grace. "Not everybody will survive cancer," he said in 2007, but on the other hand, you’ve got to realize you’ve got the gift of life, so make the most of it."

Studs Terkel (1912 - 2008)

Studs Terkel was a journalistic original whose taped oral histories painted American life with the voices of regular folk. "I celebrate the non-celebrated," he said. His history of World War II won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. Other articles and books mined the Great Depression, the American Dream and race. In 1997, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal for giving ordinary citizens a voice. What did his interviews teach him? "Geez, that the human race is somethin’."

These journalists are featured in Newseum galleries and exhibits. They are honored separately from the journalists who were killed in 2008 trying to report the news. For a preliminary list of those journalists, visit the Journalists Memorial gallery.

Obama, Economy Top News on 2008’s Front Pages

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

The historic election of Barack Obama as the country’s first African-American president was the No. 1 news story of 2008, according to an Associated Press annual poll of the top 10 news stories.

Obama’s unprecedented victory sent readers scrambling for newspaper souvenirs, forcing many newspapers around the country to publish extra copies in record numbers.

The U.S. economy — including the collapse of Wall Street banks, housing foreclosures and stock market dives — was the second biggest story of the year.

Rounding out the top 10:

3. Sky-rocketing oil prices
4. The war in Iraq
5. The Beijing Olympics
6. The earthquake in China
7. Gov. Sarah Palin’s vice presidential bid
8. Terrorism in Mumbai
9. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid
10. The Russia-Georgia war

The front pages for many of these news stories can be found in the Newseum’s archive of front pages.

Watergate’s "Deep Throat" Dies

By John Maynard, Newseum exhibits writer

Mark Felt, journalism’s most famous anonymous source, died Dec. 18 at age 95. As "Deep Throat," he helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon by leaking information about the Watergate break-in to The Washington Post.

Felt was a top FBI official in 1972 when five men broke into the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at Washington’s Watergate complex. A security guard discovered tape on the latch of a stairwell door, which led to the burglars’ arrest and touched off the Watergate scandal.

Frustrated by pressure from the White House to downplay the break-in, Felt relayed information to reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. They exposed the Nixon administration’s involvement in the break-in, which led to the president’s resignation in 1974.

For 30 years, the identity of "Deep Throat" remained one of the nation’s biggest secrets. Only Woodward, Bernstein and Post editor Ben Bradlee knew his true identity. Felt was finally revealed as "Deep Throat" in a 2005 profile in Vanity Fair.

The Watergate door, Bernstein’s notes and other Watergate artifacts can be seen in the Newseum’s News Corporation News History Gallery.

President-Elect Barack Obama Part of a Timely Tradition

By Ann Rauscher, Newseum exhibits editor

In 1927, a young pilot named Charles Lindbergh catapulted to international fame when he became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Later that year, another historic first took place when Time magazine dubbed Lindbergh “Man of the Year,” starting one of the most famous traditions in American journalism.

Each year, the editors of Time select the person or people who, in their judgment, most affected the news over the past 12 months. The magazine’s 2008 “Person of the Year” is President-elect Barack Obama, who will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2009, and is the first black person elected to the office.

The annual tradition began almost by chance. In late December 1927, when the magazine’s editors faced a slow news week and could not decide on a cover subject for the first issue of the new year, someone suggested that they make up for an oversight earlier in the year, when they had neglected to put Lindbergh on the cover after he completed his solo flight across the Atlantic in May.

The idea became a hit. Over the years, selections have included the famous and infamous — presidents and dictators, statesmen and scientists, civic leaders and innovators. But after 81 years, Lindbergh, who was 25 when he became the first Man of the Year, remains the youngest person to receive the distinction.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only three-time Man of the Year. Three women received the honor as individuals, most recently Corazon Aquino in 1986, and China’s Madame Chiang Kai-shek was named with her husband in 1937. In the 21st century, four more women have been added to the ranks — three women known collectively as “The Whistleblowers” were named the 2002 Persons of the Year, and Melinda Gates shared the title in 2005 with her husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Irish musician Bono.

The year’s biggest newsmaker is not always a single individual or even a human. Time has named groups of people, including Hungarian freedom fighters (1956) and American women (1975), as well as the computer (Machine of the Year in 1982) and Earth itself (1988’s Planet of the Year). Perhaps the most unusual recipient came in 2006, when the magazine featured a mirror-like piece of reflective Mylar on the cover and named “You” as Person of the Year.

Time, the first modern newsmagazine, was founded in 1923 by journalists Henry R. Luce and Briton Hadden. The first Man of the Year issue is displayed in the Newseum’s News Corporation News History Gallery, along with Time’s inaugural issue and other first-edition magazines from Luce’s Time Inc. publications empire.

Shelter Dog Tops Newseum’s Presidential Pooch Poll

WASHINGTON — Nearly 7,000 Newseum visitors picked a shelter dog as their favorite canine for President-elect Barack Obama and his family.

During the month-old poll, part of the Newseum’s popular exhibit "First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Pets," visitors cast their votes among five hypoallergenic breeds, recommended by the American Kennel Club, and a shelter dog. The shelter dog received 3,276 votes, or 49 percent. The Bichon Frisé was a distant second with 21 percent. Runner-ups included:

• • Wheaten Terrier, 13 percent
• • Poodle, 7 percent
• • Miniature Schnauzer, 6 percent
• • Chinese Crested, 4 percent

Read the related press release

"First Dogs" is scheduled to remain on display at the Newseum through May 15, 2009.

The exhibit is supported by a gift from PEDIGREE®, a brand of Mars, Inc.

Ladies’ Home Journal Celebrates 125 years

By Lesette R. Heath, Newseum special programs coordinator

In December 1883, the first issue of Ladies’ Home Journal debuted with articles on needlework and columns on flower care and child rearing, recipes and fashion tips. Today, the popular women’s magazine offers advice on family, marriage, work, home and beauty. Little has changed in 125 years.

Combining style with substance, Ladies’ Home Journal maintains a loyal following — it’s read by one in eight women and shows little signs of aging.

In the beginning, it was known as The Ladies’ Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper, and marketed as a trade newspaper. Like other publications devoted to the interests of women, it was designed to help middle-class women in their jobs as housewives, according to Mary Ellen Zuckerman, the author of "A History of Popular Women’s Magazines in the United States, 1792-1995."

Under founding editor Louisa Knapp, the wife of owner Cyrus Curtis, the magazine flourished, reaching a circulation of 1 million in 10 years. By this time, Knapp had handed over the reins to Edward W. Bok, although she continued to have an active role at the magazine.

Bok guided the magazine for 30 years, expanding its content to include essays, poetry, and political and social commentary. Described as a legendary figure in the magazine world, Bok helped turn Ladies’ Home Journal into one of the most prestigious publications of the early 20th century.

In the decades that followed, the magazine maintained its sense of tradition, but also adapted with the times.

At the height of the Great Depression, Ladies’ Home Journal encouraged women to "escape Depression realities." A February 1932 headline insisted "It’s up to the Women." The magazine also showed its patriotism during both world wars, urging women to participate in activities to help the war efforts.

By October 1946, Ladies’ Home Journal introduced its slogan, "never underestimate the power of a woman." Also synonymous with the magazine is the column "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" Launched in 1953, the feature quickly captured reader interest for its honest view of marriage.

Today, Ladies’ Home Journal speaks candidly — and personally — to its readers, addressing topics from breast cancer to ways to overcome supermom syndrome.

Examples of early women’s magazines from the 18th and 19th centuries can be seen in the Newseum’s News Corporation News History Gallery.

Video Blog: Holiday Shopping at the Newseum

Time is running out to complete your holiday shopping, and the Newseum’s Sonya Gavankar has some tips to make it easy.

Shop Online: Check out quality, unique gifts – only at the Newseum store.

Buy a Newseum Membership: It makes a wonderful gift that keeps on giving.

Visit the Newseum Store: The Newseum Store is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily for Newseum visitors. Nonpaying guests may shop at the Newseum Store between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. daily and must stop at the main admission desk to be escorted to the store.

'Yes, Virginia' Editorial Outlasts the Sun

By W. Joseph Campbell, associate professor, American University

American journalism’s best-known editorial, a timeless tribute to childhood and the Christmas spirit, marked its 111th anniversary in September. Ten days later, it passed another, if little-recognized milestone: outlasting the second iteration of the newspaper in which it originally appeared.

The editorial was published beneath the headline "Is There A Santa Claus?" in 1897 in the New York Sun, a gray but lively newspaper that began as a penny paper in 1833. The editorial’s author was Francis Pharcellus Church, a veteran journalist who was assigned to write a reply to a letter from an 8-year-old named Virginia O’Hanlon.

"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus," Virginia had written. "Papa says ‘if you see it in the Sun, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?"

"Virginia, your little friends are wrong," Church replied. "They have been afflicted by the skepticism of a skeptical age."

A few sentences later, Church invoked the editorial’s most memorable passages: "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus."

"Is There A Santa Claus?" was given an obscure place in the Sun, in the third of three columns of editorials on Sept. 21, 1897. It was oddly timed, too — an editorial about Santa Claus appearing in September, three months before Christmas.

But over the years, the editorial became a classic in American journalism, and easily the most memorable item ever published in the Sun. That venerable newspaper folded in January 1950.

The Sun remained a storied name in American journalism, and the name was revived in April 2002 by owners of a new conservative-oriented daily in New York. The resurrected Sun laid claim to its predecessor’s legacy, adopting its logo — which proclaimed the Sun "shines for all" — and its elaborate nameplate.

"Yes, Virginia," the Associated Press said of the new newspaper, "there is a New York Sun again."

The new Sun lasted just six, money-losing years in New York’s hypercompetitive media market and published its final issue on Sept. 30, 2008. Thus, "Is There A Santa Claus?" outlived two incarnations of its natal newspaper.

So what explains such longevity? Why is the editorial so endlessly appealing?

Several answers offer themselves.

"Is There A Santa Claus?" lives on because it’s such a rarity — an all-around cheery story, one without villains or sinister forces.

For many adults, the editorial stirs memories of Christmases past, when they, too, were young believers.

The editorial also offers a connection to a time quite different from ours, a time before jet aircraft, television and the Internet. It is somehow reassuring to know that what was engaging in 1897 remains appealing now.

The editorial lives on as a reminder of the lyrical heights that journalism, on occasion, can reach.

Campbell, a Newseum researcher and scholar, discusses the back story of "Is There a Santa Claus" in his book, "The Year That Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms" (Routledge, 2006). Campbell will discuss the editorial on Saturday, Dec. 20, 2008, at 3 p.m. in the News Corporation News History Gallery on Level 5.

Video Blog: Proclaiming the Five Freedoms

First Amendment Center Vice President and Executive Director Gene Policinski asks Newseum visitors to name the Five Freedoms of the First Amendment.

From the Newseum Collection

Blackbeard’s Last Stand

The Somali pirates who are holding a cargo ship and its crew for ransom off the coast of East Africa should pay heed to the fate of one of the world’s most notorious pirates — Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard.

On March 2, 1719, The Boston News-Letter, the first successful newspaper in the British Colonies, printed a dramatic account of Blackbeard’s bloody death on a sloop off the coast of North Carolina.

[Lieutenant Robert Maynard] and Teach themselves two begun the Fight with their Swords. Maynard making a thrust, the point of his Sword went against Teach’s Cartridge-Box, and bended it to the Hilt. Teach broke the Guard of it, and wounded Maynard’s Fingers but did not disable him, where upon he Jumpt back, threw away his Sword, and fired his Pistol, which wounded Teach. [Abraham] Demelt struck in between them with his Sword and cut Teach’s Face pretty much; in the Interim both Companies ingaged in Maynard’s Sloop. One of Maynard’s Men being a Highlander, ingaged Teach with his broad Sword, who gave Teach a cut on the Neck. Teach saying, well done Lad, the Highlander reply’d, if it be not well done, I’ll do it better. With that he gave him a second stroke, which cut off his Head, laying it flat on his Shoulder. … Teach’s body was thrown overboard, and his Head put on the top of the Bowsprit.

This edition of The Boston News-Letter is currently on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

Newseum Celebrates FotoWeek DC

WASHINGTON — Newseum passersby along Pennsylvania Avenue Nov. 15, 2008, were treated to a dazzling slide show of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs during the opening of FotoWeek DC. The photographs were illuminated on the 74-foot-tall stone tablet on the building’s façade that bears the 45 words of the First Amendment.

More info: Get the Picture During FotoWeek DC

45 Years Ago: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

By Bridget Gutierrez, Newseum exhibits writer

WASHINGTON — On Nov. 22, 1963, UPI teletype machines in newsrooms across the country suddenly stopped transmitting a story on a Minneapolis murder trial to report breaking news: "Three shots were fired at President Kennedy’s motorcade today in downtown Dallas."

Within minutes, Americans heard the ominous report, first on radio and then television. An hour later, they learned the 35th president of the United States was dead.

To mark the 45th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Newseum’s newest exhibit looks back at the newspapers, magazines and photographs that reported the tragedy and the stories behind the coverage. The exhibit opens Nov. 18, 2008, in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

Journalists didn’t have laptops, digital cameras or cell phones four decades ago. But using typewriters, film and land-line telephones, they reported every breaking development — from Parkland Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead, to Love Field, where Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president, to the Texas Theatre, where suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was captured.

Television networks carried nonstop, commercial-free coverage for nearly four days. Two days after the assassination, TV viewers who were tuned to NBC, the only network that carried live coverage of Oswald’s jail transfer, witnessed the first live murder on television when nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot the accused assassin at point-blank range. The following day, more than 93 percent of U.S. TV households watched Kennedy’s funeral.

Also on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery are the original UPI bulletin about the shooting in Dallas, historic newspapers reporting the assassination and scripts and notes from radio reporter Ike Pappas, who witnessed Oswald’s murder while taping an on-the-scene report.

Other stories about the Kennedy assassination in the Newseum include:

• • TV coverage of the assassination, in the Internet, TV and Radio Gallery.
  
  
• • The story behind the award-winning photograph of Oswald’s murder, in the Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery.

The Newseum-produced book "President Kennedy Has Been Shot" is available in the Newseum Store or may be ordered online. The book features interviews with journalists who covered the assassination and comes with a CD containing actual vintage news reports, including the live broadcast of Oswald’s murder.

First Dogs: Raising the Woof in the White House

By Bridget Gutierrez, Newseum exhibits writer

Update: The First Dog Debuts

WASHINGTON — If you want a friend in Washington, the old saying goes, get a dog. Since the days of George Washington, most U.S. presidents have.

Hundreds of pets have lived at the White House, including parrots, goats, raccoons and cats. But dogs top the list as the favorite presidential pet.

A new exhibit, "First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Pets," opens Nov. 14, 2008, at the Newseum, showcasing some of the top dogs who have resided at the nation’s most prestigious address.

On display are images of dogs belonging to 22 presidents. Journalists helped turn many of the pets into national celebrities, including Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Scottish terrier, Fala, who had his own press secretary, and Warren G. Harding’s Airedale, Laddie Boy, who had his own chair at Cabinet meetings. A book "written" by George H.W. Bush’s English springer spaniel, Millie, sold more copies than Bush’s own book.

President-elect Barack Obama said he intended to fulfill a very important campaign pledge to his daughters Malia and Sasha — that they would get a dog after the election. Newseum visitors can vote for their choice for the next presidential pooch while viewing the exhibit.

Some highlights of other presidents and their pets include:

• • Abraham Lincoln’s dog Fido was the first presidential pet to be photographed, but it wasn’t a happy occasion. Lincoln was leaving Fido, a mongrel, in Illinois and wanted a memento for his sons before setting out for his 1861 inauguration in Washington.
  
  
• • Calvin and Grace Coolidge maintained a menagerie during his 1920s presidency, including 12 dogs and a pair of raccoons. On display is a photograph of their white collie Prudence Prim showing off her Easter bonnet for Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon.
  
  
• • Herbert Hoover won fans, and possibly his 1928 election, by posing with his police dog, King Tut, for campaign photos. He and his wife, Lou, kept nine dogs at the White House, including their Norwegian elkhound, Weegie.
  
  
• • John F. Kennedy was allergic to dogs. Even so, the Kennedys had nine, including Clipper, Charlie, Wolf, Shannon and the mixed breed Pushinka, a gift from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
  
  
• • In April 1964, dog lovers protested after seeing front-page photos of Lyndon B. Johnson lifting his beagles, Him and Her, by the ears. Insisting to reporters that the dogs didn’t mind, Johnson demonstrated the move again days later.
  
  
• • Forced to account for $18,000 in questionable gifts during the 1952 election, Republican vice presidential nominee Richard M. Nixon insisted to a television audience that the only gift he received was for his children — a cocker spaniel named Checkers. He won voters’ sympathies when he explained, "The kids love the dog … and we’re going to keep it."
  
  
• • Gerald R. Ford’s photographer, David Hume Kennerly, was looking for a golden retriever for his boss in 1974 but didn’t want to reveal who the owner would be. "Do they own or rent?" the breeder asked. "I guess you could say they live in public housing," Kennerly deadpanned. Ford named the dog Liberty.
  
  
• • George W. Bush joked that his Scottish terrier, Barney, was the son he never had. Bush’s "Barney Cam" videos, showing life at the White House from the dog’s view, were an Internet sensation. Barney made news again in November 2008 when he bit a reporter who tried to pet him.

Note: "First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Pets" is scheduled to remain on display at the Newseum through May 2009.

This exhibit is supported by a gift to the Newseum from PEDIGREE®, a brand of Mars, Inc.

Extra! Extra! Newspaper Souvenirs Beat Web By a Landslide

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Who said newspapers were dead?

In the aftermath of President-elect Barack Obama’s historic election, hundreds of people from coast to coast lined up to snap up extra and commemorative newspaper souvenirs marking the event. In many cases, demand was unprecedented.

USA Today sold an extra 380,000 copies and sold more online. The Washington Post has printed a total of 1,050,000 "Commemorative Election" editions since November 5. The Chicago Tribune "printed more than 1.1 million copies of the November 5 edition, about 410,000 more than we normally print," the paper’s communications manager said. The Los Angeles Times printed 200,000 extra copies and "expect that number to increase," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had to reprint five times for a total of 248,000 extra newspapers.

What drives people to seek out newspaper mementos of events like Obama’s election? The answer lies in the newspaper itself — hard, tangible proof of a significant occurrence that can be touched, held and saved for future generations. As a reader explained in the Washington Post: "You can’t show your children your BlackBerry or your computer screen."

The Newseum’s daily display of newspaper front pages from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and countries around the world attracted a steady flow of tourists and news crews the day after the election outside the building on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Newseum’s Web site saw an 800 percent jump in the number of views to the Front Pages section. Commemorative posters of the front pages will soon be available online and in the Newseum store.

At a time when news publications are cutting their losses and moving exclusively to the Web, Obama’s unparalleled election proves that when it comes to preserving memories, high tech takes a back seat to good old-fashioned paper.

A look through the Newseum’s archive of historic front pages provides a close-up look at some of the past key events that merited extra editions.

• • The Maryland Gazette gave readers something extra on Sept. 22, 1787: a special printing of the U.S. Constitution. The two-sided broadsheet was labeled "Extraordinary," likely the word from which the newspaper expression "extra" was derived.
  
  
• • The London Gazette’s "extraordinary" in June 1815 carried Wellington’s report of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. The French Suplement Extraordinaire Du Moniteur, published a day before the Gazette, described Napoleon’s movements before the decisive battle.
  
  
• • In January 1840, the luxury steamer Lexington burned and sank off Long Island. Nearly 150 passengers and crew died. The New York Sun published "extra" editions with illustrations, some hand-colored, others lithographed in black-and-white by Nathaniel Currier.
  
  
• • South Carolina’s secession from the Union in December 1860 was heralded in a broadside extra edition of the Charleston Mercury. Less than four months later, the Mercury published another extra, reporting the opening shots of the Civil War — the attack on Fort Sumter.
  
  
• • Within 90 minutes after President Abraham Lincoln died from an assassin’s bullet on April 14, 1865, The New York Herald published an extra with the dreadful news. The paper also carried reports from earlier editions detailing the attacks on Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward.
  
  
• • Joe Louis’s first-round knockout of Max Schmeling in 1938 prompted a "Fight Extra" from Boston’s Daily Record. The rematch between American Louis and German Schmeling held worldwide interest. "We need muscles like yours to beat Germany," President Franklin D. Roosevelt reportedly told Louis before the fight.
  
  
• • An hour after the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin published a "1st Extra" edition. The issue contained a preliminary list of the dead and injured, information on school closings and an editorial about how Hawaii will meet the "crisis."
  
  
• • Elvis Presley, the "king of rock ’n’ roll," died on Aug. 16, 1977, at his Memphis mansion. Swamped with requests for extra copies of their Aug. 17 issues, the Memphis Press-Scimitar and The Commercial Appeal jointly published a special "Elvis Presley Edition" a week later.
  
  
• • The Los Angeles Times published an extra edition on Oct. 3, 1995, when a California jury acquitted former football star O.J. Simpson in the murders of his former wife and a male friend of hers. Simpson’s trial attracted a swarm of news media from around the world.

These front pages and other headlines of history have a remarkable shelf life and are on display in the Newseum’s News Corporation News History Gallery.

Related topic: Tips on preserving newspaper souvenirs.

History Lesson

WASHINGTON — The Newseum’s daily exhibit of newspaper front pages was a popular post-election attraction for tourists and international news organizations seeking more news about President-elect Barack Obama’s historic victory on November 4.

Every morning, more than 600 newspapers from every U.S. state and from countries around the world submit their front pages to the Newseum via the Internet to be part of the Today's Front Pages exhibit. Fifty-two of the front pages are displayed in cases in front of the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue. Eighty are displayed inside in the Today’s Front Pages Gallery on Level 6.

The full selection of front pages is available on newseum.org each day by 8:30 a.m. To see the Nov, 5, 2008, front pages from the United States and around the world, click here.

Video: Change Has Come

Front Pages Archive: Obama Makes History, Nov. 5, 2008

Change Has Come

National and international front pages trumpeted Barack Obama’s election as the first African-American president of the United States. See some of the headlines that brought the historic news to people around the world.

Slideshow: History Lesson

Front Pages Archive: Obama Makes History, Nov. 5, 2008

From AARP Bulletin Today: Americans tell AARP Bulletin what issues President-elect Barack Obama should tackle in his first 100 days.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

America Votes for Change

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

Some pols and pundits predicted a landslide, but the headlines on the world’s front pages reflected the themes, slogans and ubiquitous logo of President-elect Barack Obama’s historic presidential campaign.

• • "Yes We Can." (The Record of Stockton, Calif.)
• • "Change Comes to America." (Canada’s The Hamilton Spectator)
• • "Change of Course." (Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald)
• • "Face of Change." (Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald)
• • "A New Hope." (Iowa City Press-Citizen)

Many newspapers — particularly in the South — chose poignant civil rights themes to describe Obama’s unprecedented feat.

• • "In Our Lifetime," declared The Anniston (Ala.) Star.
• • "Obama Overcomes," said The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News.
• • "Race is History," The Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise offered.
• • "Obama Reaches The Mountaintop," said The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.

But for the majority of newspapers, the president-elect’s last name and new title were enough to tell the story.

• • "Obama!" (The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa.)
• • "Oh-Bama! (The Orange County (Calif.) Register
• • "Mr. President." (The Chicago Sun-Times)
• • "It’s Obama." (La Tribune of Paris, France)

Finally, for every victory, there is a defeat. The Arizona Republic summed up Sen. John McCain’s poignant concession speech. "Arizonan McCain gracious in defeat; calls for unity," the paper said.

Video: Change Has Come

Slideshow: History Lesson

Front Pages Archive: Obama Makes History, Nov. 5, 2008

From the Newseum Collection

South African Ballot Box; Florida Voting Machine

Free elections, like a free press, do not exist in many parts of the world. As voters across the United States prepare to elect a new president in what is expected to be heavy voter turnout in the historic 2008 presidential election, they will cast their votes using high-tech electronic machines and old-fashioned paper ballots.

Two treasures from the Newseum collection provide different tales of Election Day around the globe.

Few images better captured political change in Africa than news photographs of South Africans waiting in long lines to vote in 1994 — the first time in the country’s history that the black majority had been allowed to vote. More than 85 percent of South Africa’s eligible voters placed ballots. The landmark elections officially dismantled South Africa’s system of racial separation, known as apartheid, and delivered once-imprisoned Nelson Mandela to the presidency. This ballot box, a gift to the Newseum from South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission, was used near Pretoria. It is on display in the Time Warner World News Gallery.

In the race for the White House in 2000, voting machines and ballots in Florida were almost as big a story as the presidential election, spawning charges that votes mistakenly had gone to the wrong candidate. Many news organizations launched investigations of those complaints. Several voting machines were retired after the 2000 election because of issues with their accuracy and the infamous “hanging chads.” This voting machine from Palm Beach County, Fla., was purchased by the Newseum. It — along with the late Tim Russert’s eraser board — is on display in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

A portion of a Votomatic voting booth that was used in Broward County, Fla., in the 2000 presidential election is located in the Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery. It was a gift of Frances Klein and the League of Women Voters of Broward County.

Get the Picture During FotoWeek DC

WASHINGTON — FotoWeek DC, the first annual gathering of professional photographers and photography enthusiasts who celebrate the medium of photography, will team up with several museums in the nation’s capital to create an unprecedented, world premiere digital slide show. The Newseum is one of several sponsors of the weeklong event.

During the festival — November 13–22, 2008, — visitors will see a dazzling display of large-scale projections of photographs selected from the collections of some of Washington’s most honored institutions. These multistory projections will create the largest HD slide show to date and exhibit some of the world’s most compelling photographic images. The projections begin at dusk and are free and open to the public.

The Newseum’s slide show begins November 15 at 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., and from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. November 16. The slide show will feature Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs illuminated on the 74-foot tall stone tablet on the façade of the building that bears the 45 words of the First Amendment.

Other Newseum events honoring FotoWeek DC include:

November 16: "Inside Media" program
Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Ken Geiger will discuss his photo of the Nigerian relay team celebrating at the 1992 Olympics.

November 22: "Inside Media" program
A panel of five Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post photographers will discuss the rewards and challenges of their work.

The 250,000-square-foot Newseum, the world’s most interactive museum, includes 15 theaters and 14 major galleries on seven levels. The Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery features the most comprehensive collection of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs ever assembled.

Plan your Newseum visit and buy your tickets now. Admission is free for annual members.

For more information on FotoWeek DC, please visit www.fotoweekdc.org.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

A future for front page? It’s all in the magic

By Kate Kennedy

Each day, streams of people pause along Pennsylvania Avenue to gaze at newspaper front pages displayed outside the Newseum.

They read. They laugh; they frown. They nod in agreement; they shake their heads in disbelief. They share; they connect.

But mostly, they linger.

Circulation is declining, and free content on the Internet is booming. But yet, few things can be as personal as a newspaper front page. “Where’s my page?” we’re often asked.

Sometimes the front page is predictable. Often it’s overly gloomy. And in too many cases, it’s inconsistent.

But every day it has an opportunity to touch people by:

Sharing what people are talking about: “They never thought they’d see the day,” the Detroit Free Press said today about African-Americans’ feelings about Barack Obama’s run for the White House. And the Los Angeles Times looks at “One more role for the cellphone: matchmaker.”

Seeing the big picture: With its state in an economic crisis and its governor in a scandal, the Las Vegas Sun examined the state of the state: “Nevada Turns 144, But What’s To Celebrate?” But not forgetting important details: The San Francisco Chronicle pursued police documents that showed “Missed opportunities hours before slaying” of the editor of the Oakland Post.

Looking beyond the headlines: In a different kind of election story, The Denver Post reported on “A risky conversation.” Said the Post: “Politics naturally divides people, but this election cycle has highlighted the divide. Now, simply talking about the presidential candidates seems like a wedge issue.”

Providing news that readers can’t get anywhere else: The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., noted that late Wednesday night its city matched its record for the number of homicides in a year. And owning what they know: “Shuttle set for Nov. 14 liftoff,” said Florida Today in Melbourne, which swamps the space beat.

Writing good headlines: “We Shopped Till We Dropped,” the Star Tribune of Minneapolis said in summarizing GDP data. “Plumb Job,” said the New York Post with a photo of Joe the Plumber on the campaign trail. And in writing a label headline that actually works, the Houston Chronicle described the path of a high school football team: “From Cream Puff to Cinderella.”

Presenting good stories and images: In an eye-catching “To Catch a Cyber-Thief” presentation, the Kitsap Sun in Bremerton, Wash., said: “A Bainbridge Island couple recovered a stolen $2,700 bicycle through sting tactics — online and with police.”

Taking a different look: Halloween stories are everywhere today, but The Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wis., breathed new life into a stale story with Rob Kaiser’s “Houdini works his magic” column about “Legendary artist offers lesson on escaping troubles.” Harry Houdini, who lived in Appleton, died on Halloween 1926.

What will the future hold for the front page? Will it escape its troubles? To editors, I’d say: Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, but don’t stop thinking about print.

Make me laugh. Make me cry. Move me to share my opinion. Move me to take action. Make me want to pick up tomorrow’s front page.

kkennedy@freedomforum.org Kate Kennedy is front-pages editor at the Newseum.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

World champs, not worldwide coverage

By Bridget Gutierrez

Newspaper editors in the mid-Atlantic region had a field day with their front pages after the Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Tampa Bay Rays, 4-3, last night to win baseball’s World Series.

Devoting its cover to a staff photograph of the closing pitcher and catcher in an exuberant bear hug, the Philadelphia Daily News exclaimed: “FROM CURSED TO FIRST … SEND IN THE CROWN!”

The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., and the Burlington County Times in Willingboro, N.J., dedicated the entire page to the event. The layout was different, the headline the same: “Phinally!” (Props to The Morning Call for using the team’s signature script.)

“WORLD CHAMPS!” declared The Philadelphia Inquirer, which gave the top two-thirds of Page One to the victory and one spectacular photograph capturing pitcher Brad Lidge’s and catcher Carlos Ruiz’s joy at winning. The subhead: “28 years later, Phillies again are baseball’s best.”

Nearby, the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J., announced: “WE DID IT!” — saving the particulars for six pages of game coverage inside.

The Press in Atlantic City, N.J., The News Journal in Wilmington, Del., and The Times-Tribune in Scranton, Pa., made the news their daily centerpiece. The Press incorporated a story and photo of celebrating fans, who apparently braved the cold and riots — yikes! — outside the ballpark. The News Journal smartly included a celebratory photograph from the Phillies’ last World Series win in 1980. It’s been a long time, boys.

Of course, there’s another side to the story. Interestingly, The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune and competitor St. Petersburg Times provided similar coverage of their team’s loss by pairing a single front-page photograph and sports column.

“MAGIC ENDS,” reads the Times headline about the amazing worst-to-first team. “Rays’ miracle season is now just great memories.” Not to mention a few front pages.

Bridget Gutierrez is an exhibits writer at the Newseum.

Sweep! Landslide! Victory! In Other Words, a Presidential Win

By Kate Kennedy, Newseum front pages editor

Many have been landslides; others have been nail-biters. But whatever the outcome, the presidential election generates a winner every four years.

From Dwight D. Eisenhower’s "Smashing Landslide Victory" to Harry S. Truman’s "Startling Victory," newspaper front pages have been there to report Election Day results.

Sometimes it was a win. "Carter Wins" was The Atlanta Journal headline in 1976 about President-elect Jimmy Carter. It was "A Solid Win" in 1988 for George H.W. Bush. In 1992, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette banner headline declared of native son Bill Clinton, "Clinton Wins."

Other times, success resulted from something more than a win: a "Great Popular Vote" (William Howard Taft in 1908), a "Tremendous Victory" (Theodore Roosevelt in 1904) and a "Tremendous Surge of Ballots" (Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952).

Occasionally, saying it was a "win" just wasn’t enough. "Lyndon’s Popular Vote Margin Near 15 Million," The Austin (Texas) Statesman reported about Johnson in 1964. Warren G. Harding was "Elected by Overwhelming Pluralities," said The Star and Sentinel of Gettysburg, Pa.

The win often came in a sweep. "A Clean Sweep!" proclaimed the Chester County (Pa.) Times when Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860. "Roosevelt Sweeps the Nation," The New York Times said in a banner headline in 1936 about Franklin D. Roosevelt. Four years later, "Roosevelt Sweeps 39 States," The Charlotte (N.C.) News said.

And often the win was a landslide. "Great Landslide for Gov. Woodrow Wilson," the Red Wing (Minn.) Morning Republican declared in 1912. "Coolidge Wins by a Landslide," the Baltimore American said in 1924 about Calvin Coolidge, who succeeded to the presidency after the death of Warren G. Harding. "Landslide for Reagan," the Los Angeles Times blared in 1980 about Ronald Reagan’s sweeping victory.

And when "win" and "victory" didn’t seem to capture the moment, headline writers used other words. "Glory Hallilujah!" The Helena (Mont.) Daily Herald proclaimed over Ulysses S. Grant’s "Triumph" in 1872.

But for every winner, there was a loser. In 1904, the New York Tribune printed a one-sentence "I congratulate you" telegram to Theodore Roosevelt from opponent Alton Parker. In 1940, a secondary headline about Republican challenger Wendell Willkie reported that "Willkie Accepts Defeat Gracefully." "Ford Vows His Support in Conceding," The Atlanta Journal said of President Gerald R. Ford in 1976.

At the bottom of the 1968 Washington Post that declared Richard Nixon’s win was a declaration by challenger Hubert H. Humphrey, "I Have Done My Best."

Today's Front Pages Analysis

Reporting on the Dow: Does what goes up must come down?

By Kate Kennedy

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Newspaper front pages couldn’t decide today as they reported on a rally that added 889 points to the Dow.

“Optimism sends stock soaring,” the San Francisco Chronicle said across its front page. “Dow takes stunning jump — 2nd-best ever,” The Denver Post said.

The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., charted the upturn inside its nameplate. The Boston Globe explained how it happened: “Bargain hunters pounce amid signs of credit thaw.”

Like many, the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel charted the stock market’s gain. But it said: “Dow soars — but hold applause.” Explained The Gazette of Colorado Spring, Colo.: “Soaring Dow is Simply Another Day of Volatility.”

Indeed, The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., said, “Rocketing Dow fails to spread much joy.” “Wall Street on edge despite Dow’s surge,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted.

The Wall Street Journal charted “Mixed Signals” — the Dow rebound and a decline in consumer confidence. The Indianapolis Star gave the stock market an up arrow but used a down arrow to describe consumers’ mood.

The Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star was one newspaper that was both optimistic and pessimistic: “Stocks surge 889 points,” the lead headline said. “But analysts don’t expect rally to last in this volatile market.”

In advance of today’s expected cut in the interest rate by the Fed, The Miami Herald said: “Cut in rate to take aim at pessimism.”

Today’s campaign news: The Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader described a “A whinnying ticket.” Horse owners through the thoroughbred registry, it reports, are reserving such names as “Joe the Plumber” and “First Dude.”

Speaking of Joe, he’s on the campaign trail, reports The Cincinnati Enquirer, which printed a photo of Joe Wurzelbacher stumping for the McCain-Palin ticket in southwest Ohio.

kkennedy@freedomforum.org Kate Kennedy is front-pages editor at the Newseum.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

Some dailies play up Stevens’ conviction; others put story inside

By Gene Mater

It took a federal jury to do it but the newspaper of record — The New York Times — and the major daily in the nation’s capital — The Washington Post — agree that the conviction of Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska tops the economy and the election as THE story of the day.

“Stevens found guilty on 7 counts,” reports the Post, and “Senator is guilty over his failures to disclose gifts,” reports the Times in their lead stories this morning. The smaller capital daily, The Washington Times, banners “Stevens guilty on all 7 counts.”

In Alaska, the Anchorage Daily News has a two-line banner head reading “Stevens guilty on all counts: ‘It’s not over yet,’ he says.”

For the rest of the nation’s dailies, there was varied coverage of the verdict in the trial of the Senate’s longest-serving Republican. Stevens is the fifth U.S. senator ever convicted of a crime, and his name is on next Tuesday’s ballot. The Philadelphia Inquirer leads with a one-column headline “Alaska’s Stevens is found guilty,” while The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., West Hawaii Today in Kailua Kona, and The News Journal in Wilmington, Del., all felt the story worth top-of-Page-One play. Then the story fades away from some Page One stories to teases to nothing.

The Los Angeles Times has an above-the-fold picture and story that “Corruption conviction doesn’t daunt Stevens,” the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune has the story at the bottom of the page, as do the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Gazette-Times in Corvallis, Ore., the Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, The Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Detroit News and The Denver Post.

Then there were dailies that teased an inside story about Stevens, starting with our friends at The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, with photo and tease next to the masthead, as high up as possible without going off Page One. The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., runs a tease and photo at the bottom of the page, The Boston Globe does it at the top of column one, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald do it in the middle of that column, while The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., teases at the top of the page next to the lead story.

The longest list would be of the U.S. dailies carrying nothing about Stevens on Page One. At least we didn’t see any maps showing where to find Alaska.

Gene Mater is a Freedom Forum media consultant.

Record-setting Family Day at the Newseum

On Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008, the Newseum explored the press and the presidency during an all-day, fun-filled "Family Day" that offered something for everyone.

Photo Slideshow: Obama Wins in Newseum Mock Election

The Power of Radio: Is Hearing Believing?

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

On Halloween eve in 1938, the power of radio was on full display when a dramatization of the science-fiction novel "The War of the Worlds" scared the daylights out of many of CBS radio’s nighttime listeners.

Listen to MP3 Audio:

• Oct. 30, 1938, War of the Worlds Broadcast (CBS Radio - 0:55:52)

Portions of the program — produced by Orson Welles and performed by him and other cast members of "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" — were written to sound like news bulletins. And though CBS announced four times during the broadcast that it was a dramatization, the bulletins sounded so authentic that thousands of panicked listeners believed Martians had landed in New Jersey and were invading Earth. Many took to the streets to flee the attack from Mars. Curiosity-seekers in central New Jersey headed for Grovers Mill, the presumed site of the Martian landing.

Ninety-two radio stations aired the drama. When it ended, most of them, as well as newspapers and police departments across the country, were swamped with callers seeking clarification and demanding to know if the world was coming to an end.

"Officials of the electric company received scores of calls urging them to turn off all lights so that the city would be safe from the enemy," The Knoxville Journal reported the next day.

"Women Weep, Men Desert Their Homes," a Des Moines Register headline proclaimed. "Mass hysteria mounted so high in some cases that persons told police and newspapers they ‘saw’ the invasion," the Register reported.

CBS and Welles were roundly criticized. Hundreds of letters and telegrams were sent to the four-year-old Federal Communications Commission.

"Radio ‘War’ Panic Brings Inquiry; U.S. to Scan Broadcast Script," the New York Post said in a banner headline. The Post quoted FCC chairman Frank R. McNinch’s intention to launch an investigation.

"The widespread public reaction to this broadcast as indicated by the press is another demonstration of the power and force of radio, and points out again the serious public responsibility of those who are licensed to operate stations," McNinch said.

In studies and surveys conducted weeks after the broadcast, some listeners cited the authenticity of the news bulletins as the reason for their fear. But the broadcast did not frighten everyone. About 40 percent of the letters sent to the FCC, and 90 percent of those sent to the Mercury Theatre, were positive.

"I was one of the thousands who heard this program and did not jump out of the window, did not attempt suicide … but sat serenely entertained no end by the fine portrayal of a fine play," wrote a listener from South Dakota.

In the months following the broadcast, "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" became "The Campbell Playhouse," thanks to the corporate sponsorship of the Campbell Soup Company. Welles went to RKO Pictures, where he later directed and starred in "Citizen Kane," the critically acclaimed film inspired by newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst.

The story of the "War of the Worlds" broadcast is told in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

Obama Wins in Newseum Mock Election

WASHINGTON — If kids could vote, Sen. Barack Obama would be their choice for president.

The Democratic nominee received 73 percent of the vote over Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, in a kids-only mock election that was held Oct. 25, 2008, at the Newseum.

Nearly 4,000 visitors took part in all-day Family Day events that explored the press and the presidency.

In addition to the mock election, visitors participated in a scavenger hunt, created their own campaign bumper stickers and buttons, listened to presidents Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, and watched award-winning Economist editorial cartoonist Kevin Kallaugher draw political figures.

To plan a visit to the Newseum, click here. Admission is free for annual members.

Video: Record-setting Family Day at the Newseum

Today's Front Pages Analysis

Middle East squeezed off Page One by politics, economic mess, sports

By Gene Mater

Have you noticed that the upcoming election, the world economic situation and the World Series and other sporting activities have pretty much squeezed U.S. involvement in the Middle East off Page One? Three Middle East stories broke during the weekend that may have missed the front page of your local newspaper.

“U.S. launches rare attack inside Syria” is the headline on the lead story of The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, ”US special forces hit Syria” is squared off at the top of American Press in Lake Charles, La., and “U.S. raid kills eight in Syrian territory,” Cape Cod Times in Hyannis, Mass., tells its readers. The Daily Gazette in Schenectady, N.Y., combines the headlines of the first two dailies with “U.S. kills eight in rare attack inside Syria,” while the Los Angeles Times suggests that “U.S. raid in Syria raises tensions.”

The story is at the bottom of Page One of the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle, The Cincinnati (Ohio) Enquirer and The Herald Journal in Logan, Utah. It leads The Birmingham News in Alabama and is the tease for “Today’s Quick Read” in the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record and is teased in the Chicago Tribune.

Then there is the U.S. threat to Iraq to make a deal or, as The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., puts it in the lead story “U.S. vows to cut off Iraq if no new deal.” The Idaho Statesman in Boise squares off “U.S, gives ‘shocking’ threat to Iraq,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel gives similar play to the story with “U.S. warns Iraq on deal” and The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash., reports, “U.S. threatens Iraq with withdrawal.”

Finally, the third story. The biggest daily in this country — USA Today — leads with unhappy news for the troops abroad and their families — “Extended war tours likely to continue” through 2009 in spite of pledges made earlier. The story was picked up here and there. Indeed, out in Iowa, the Iowa City Press-Citizen plays up the story with the same headline noted for USA Today.

Gene Mater is a Freedom Forum media consultant.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

Former Fed chairman takes his lumps on front pages

By John Maynard

A close-up picture of a dour-looking Alan Greenspan sporting a severe hangdog expression is the lead photo on many of today's front pages this morning.

And you wonder why people aren't buying newspapers.

The former Federal Reserve chairman appeared before the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill yesterday and was at the receiving end of criticism from some members of Congress who blamed his economic policies for the financial mess we are in today.

"Alan Greenspan — Called on the Carpet," is the headline in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette featuring not one, not two, but thee closeups of Greenspan, looking more and more miserable as the photos progress.

The Dallas Morning News went one way with its assessment: "'I made a mistake,' Greenspan admits," while The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash., opted for a different interpretation: "Greenspan: Don't blame me for mess."

The Lima (Ohio) News, which goes with a photo that can only be described as an extreme close-up, sums it up in more neutral terms. "Flaw in the model," the headline says in reference to Greenspan's admission that mistakes were made during his 18 years of service.

Meanwhile, some papers are looking at presidential polls in their states. Barack Obama may have the lead in many places, including key battleground states, but don't tell that to the folks in Kentucky or Arkansas. "McCain's lead in state is safe," blares the Lexington Herald-Leader. The Morning News in Fayetteville, Ark., also shows John McCain leading Obama in a story under the headline "Poll Gives State Pulse."

But it's too close to call in Montana according to the Great Falls Tribune, which asks "Montana: Red or Blue?"

In Connecticut, the New Haven Register cautions against poll-watching under the banner headline "Polls Apart" with an AP story looking at dueling results of recent major polls.

John Maynard is a Newseum exhibits writer.

Mistakes Are Made During Close Campaigns

By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor

As this historic presidential campaign comes to a close and the nation awaits the election of its next commander in chief, members of the media should bear in mind three infamous words in their haste to predict the winner: "Dewey Defeats Truman."

Probably the best-known error in presidential election coverage was made 60 years ago at the Chicago Daily Tribune, which declared Thomas Dewey the victor over President Harry S. Truman. Pollsters predicted that Dewey would defeat Truman in the 1948 election. The reliance on those predictions by a few deadline-pressed Tribune editors — combined with slow election returns, tight deadlines and a staff strike — produced the paper’s most famous embarrassment. Overshadowed by the headline was another error on the same page: Part of the top story’s second paragraph was printed upside down.

The newspaper and a video on media mistakes can be seen in the News Corporation News History Gallery.

Wanting to be first with breaking news is nothing new: Beating the competition is a matter of pride for news professionals. A look through the Newseum’s collection of historic newspapers reveals that while the Tribune’s mistake may have been the most famous error, it certainly wasn’t the first.

In 1916, the Cleveland Plain Dealer declared Charles Evans Hughes the winner in its front-page banner headline. But the final tally showed different results: Incumbent President Woodrow Wilson had won.

As recently as the 2004 presidential election, the New York Post went out on a limb and declared Rep. Dick Gephardt the vice presidential running mate of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. "Kerry’s Choice: Dem Picks Gephardt as VP Candidate," the headline declared. Sen. John Edwards turned out to be Kerry’s choice. The Post corrected itself with a revision: "Kerry’s Choice: Dem Picks Edwards as VP Candidate (Really)."

In the 2000 presidential election, considered the most controversial in political history, the intense competition to be first, coupled with unreliable polling data, a razor-close election and 24-hour news coverage, led to confusion and conflicting broadcasts about the results. Broadcasters initially said Democratic nominee Al Gore had won the key state of Florida. Then they backtracked and said Republican nominee George W. Bush had won the state. In the end, it was clear that the rush to be first was in large part responsible for the blunders. Editors at the Orlando Sentinel in Florida went through several headlines before finally settling on "Contested."

After a contentious recount that involved a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court to end it, Bush was declared the victor. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

There’s Page One news besides the economy and the election

By Gene Mater

They did it again. They being the stock markets; again being yesterday’s precipitous drop. We decided to look for non-economic and non-election stories this morning, stories such as “1st snowfall brings 6 inches to The County” that tops Page One for the Bangor Daily News up in Maine, our friends at The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, playing up the fifth anniversary of the Dodge Arena with a story, photos and numbers, even as The Tampa Tribune in Florida whoops up “The World’s Stage” and the World Series game at Tropicana Field.

The Honolulu Advertiser tells its readers that “Traffic better, but still worst in nation,” while The Times in Munster, Ind., reports that a voter-registration drive (there’s the election story) is one of the “Worst in the nation” and the Chicago Tribune dug out its second-coming type for the number 13%, adding that “The governor’s approval rating among Illinois voters is even lower than Bush’s.” The Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota uses much of Page One to report about “Our bridge to nowhere,” with a story noting the county “spent $48,000 to restore a bridge, then placed it over a storm water pond.” The Herald Times Reporter in Manitowoc, Wis., reports on “WWII through one man’s eyes,” thereby localizing the last good war, while The San Diego Union-Tribune does the same about the suicide bomber who killed more than 200 in “Beirut blast still resounds” and the Leader-Telegram in Eau Claire, Wis., reports about a local National Guard unit “Reporting for duty.” The Idaho Statesman in Boise plays up the “Results of the Idaho Outdoors/Idaho Camera photo contest,” complete with a pleasant picture on Page One, while The Dominion Post in Morgantown, W.Va., reports with story and photos about “Mom makes human a shield at bus stop” because “some folks aren’t stopping” when school buses flash their red lights.

We’ll mention only one first page about the economy. It’s the Chicago Sun-Times reporting “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry,” reporting the good news about gas prices dropping and the bad news about “Financial markets predicting the worst of all worlds.” That leads us to our first prize for today’s Page One. India has just sent a rocket to the moon. The banner headline in The Telegraph in Calcutta says it all: “TO MOON: Right now, it looks a better place than our Earth.”

Gene Mater is a Freedom Forum media consultant.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

More than election news in your local newspaper

By Gene Mater

Watch television and the upcoming election seems to be the big story that we all care about. Not so. Indeed, we started the day skipping through the European dailies, but we found precious little U.S. election coverage. Jurnal de Caras-Severin in colorful Resita, Romania, has a small picture of John McCain, but it’s only to tease a story on Page 2. Our friends at SME in Bratislava, Slovakia, have a large Page One photo of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But that’s about it for Europe, so we turned to U.S. coverage.

The Anniston Star in Alabama plays up “Area gas prices finally return to lower levels,” and the Anchorage Daily News in Alaska squares off at the top of Page One the trial of the senior U.S. senator, wondering “Which Stevens will jury judge?” The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson grumbles that “we’re all paying more” in taxes, while The Sentinel-Record in Hot Springs, Ark., gives major play, with photo, to the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra playing for students. The Sun in San Bernardino, Calif., leads with plans for a new 12-story court building, the Connecticut Post in Bridgeport whoops up the tried-and-true picture of “Elephants on parade” and the circus coming to town, and Florida Today in Melbourne puts possible re-starting of the Hubble telescope in space at the top of the page and the birth of twin jaguars at the bottom. The South Bend Tribune in Indiana uses the top of its Page One to ask whether “Consumers addicted to plastic?” — credit cards, that is.

The Iowa City (Iowa) Press-Citizen has a colorful “Colors of fall” Page One reporting on leaf-turning time, The Kentucky Enquirer in Fort Mitchell warns that “Some firms refusing to hire smokers,” the Times Herald in Port Huron, Mich., confirms to its readers what they probably know, that “Roads make ‘worst’ list,” and the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., uses most of Page One for a picture and a story about “SUV stolen, abandoned with 3-year-old inside.”

Finally, two dailies play up local library censorship problems. The Gazette-Times in Corvallis, Ore., tells its readers that “Library items raise eyebrows,” warning that “Not even Muppets safe from patron complaints,” while the Independent Record in Helena, Mont., reports “Library board votes to keep controversial book on hand,” and the book is The Joy of Gay Sex.

If you’re looking for an escape from all the election coverage, read your local newspaper.

Gene Mater is a Freedom Form media consultant.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

Two weeks and counting: Crisscrossing contested states

By Kate Kennedy

With two weeks to go until the presidential election, pivotal states are getting additional attention from the campaigns. And the campaigning is drawing the attention of the front page.

Colorado: Sarah Palin campaigned in the state Monday and labeled “Obama a socialist,” the Fort Collins Coloradoan said. The Rocky Mountain News, which is not endorsing a candidate for president, pictured the vice presidential candidate and said, “Fight to the finish.”

Florida: The South Florida Sun Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale mapped the travels of the candidates and their surrogates in the Sunshine State: “For now, they all just love Florida.” Hillary Clinton appeared with Barack Obama, who called for “’Jobs, Baby, Jobs,’” said the Orlando Sentinel, which has endorsed Obama. The Tampa Tribune, which endorsed John McCain, pictured Obama with members of the Tampa Bay Rays, who introduced him at a rally.

Missouri: “Vote seekers blitz tossed-up state,” said the Springfield News-Leader, which is endorsing state and local candidates but not a candidate in the presidential race. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch called it “Marching Across Missouri” and noted that McCain was Monday’s visitor. It has endorsed Obama.

Pennsylvania: “McCain is pulling out all the stops in Pa.,” said The Philadelphia Inquirer, which has endorsed Obama. But the bigger focus in some places is the World Series-bound Phillies.

Meanwhile, The Honolulu Advertiser reported that Obama is returning to Hawaii Thursday to visit his grandmother, who is ill.

Early voting got under way in many places. “First day totals for early voting reach new heights across area,” said the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, which has endorsed Obama. “Early voting center opens in Fargo/Auditor predicts more than 4,000 to use site during the next 2 weeks,” said The Forum, which endorsed McCain.

The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk noted heightened emotions about the election and reported, “Some cities to tighten Election Day security.”

Wasted in Wisconsin: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is examining alcohol use in the Badger State in a five-part series that includes 72 profiles of victims of drunken driving. Today’s package outlined the tab for one drunken driver’s 10 offenses. The newspaper’s Web site includes an interactive graphic and a chat about the state’s drinking culture.

kkennedy@freedomforum.org Kate Kennedy is front-pages editor at the Newseum.

Old School Meets New Media in 2008 Presidential Campaign

By Emily Hedges and John Maynard, Newseum exhibit writers

Traditional media is taking a back seat to new media in this presidential election season. Campaign news is delivered almost as it happens to Web sites via online reporters, bloggers, text and Twitter messages, and YouTube videos.

News from the campaign trail goes "viral," spreading quickly via the Web, which can be both good and bad for the candidates.

Mayhill Fowler, whose "citizen-powered," "Off the Bus" blog on "The Huffington Post" Web site, broke two stories that negatively affected two campaigns.

She captured Democratic nominee Barack Obama on tape saying that some "bitter" working-class voters "cling to guns or religion." She also taped Bill Clinton crudely insulting a reporter, sparking a backlash against Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

But candidates also use the Web to get their messages out to the public unfiltered by the media.

Nearly all of the candidates used Web sites and social networking sites such as MySpace and YouTube to talk directly to voters. In a presidential campaign first, Obama’s campaign sent out a 26-word text message announcing Sen. Joe Biden as the Democratic vice presidential pick.

Digital campaign methods cover more miles, reach more people and can have a more immediate impact than any national convention or TV news report ever could. The downside: The unfiltered approach bypasses the rigorous analysis and fact checking performed by traditional news outlets.

"Old school" news outlets are adopting new media approaches. CBS News anchor Katie Couric has a YouTube channel to post videos of her campaign coverage in hopes of luring younger viewers. More than 6 million people watched Couric’s much-discussed interviews with vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin via YouTube.

Other videos on YouTube had a big impact, including Obama’s former pastor making controversial comments on race and politics.

Sometimes the blogosphere pushes news into the mainstream. Internet rumors forced the McCain campaign to announce that the teenage daughter of Gov. Palin was pregnant, propelling the story onto front pages and broadcast news.

"We’re in a very different place than we were in 2004," said Ariana Huffington, editor in-chief of "The Huffington Post." "No longer is it bloggers vs. old media; it’s much more of a convergence."

A new exhibit on the digital campaign of 2008 can be found in the Newseum’s Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

Football, politics, baseball compete for headlines

By Hicks Wogan

Whatever other news is breaking, on Mondays in the fall you can expect front pages across the country to tackle pro football. Yesterday the National Football League played 13 headline-grabbing games.

In St. Louis the Dallas Cowboys played without their starting quarterback, Tony Romo, and, man, did they look lost. The Rams battered them 34-14, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch heralded the win with the headline, “Suddenly Potent Rams Stun Cowboys.” The Dallas Morning News sang of “St. Louis Blues.”

The Carolina Panthers shredded the New Orleans Saints, 30-7, and The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer boasts with a front-page banner that plays on a New Orleans nickname: “Big Easy Win.”

In Chicago the hometown Bears outgunned the Minnesota Vikings, 48-41. “O” is for Offense and this morning, on the cover of a 12-page “Bears Extra” section, the Chicago Sun-Times exclaims, “‘O’ My!” Da Bears intercepted Vikings quarterback Gus Frerotte four times, and the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune announces above its nameplate that “Vikings Crumble.”

“Chargers Short-Circuited in Buffalo,” reads The San Diego (Calif.) Union-Tribune after the local team lost to the Bills. With the 23-14 win, Buffalo improved its record to 5-1.

The NFL’s only undefeated team, the Tennessee Titans, rushed for a franchise-record 332 yards on Sunday and destroyed the Kansas City Chiefs, 48-10. “Mighty Titans stay perfect,” notes The Tennessean of Nashville. The team moved to 6-0.

Oakland Raiders placekicker Sebastian Janikowski bombed a 57-yard field goal to beat the New York Jets in overtime. Across the Bay, the San Francisco Chronicle has a clever headline: “Raiders Give Jets the Boot.” But not so sure-footed were the Cleveland Browns, who missed a late field goal to hand a 14-11 victory to the Washington Redskins. The ‘Skins were led by Clinton Portis’s 175 yards rushing and improved their record to 5-2. It was their fifth win by seven or fewer points, and The Washington Post duly calls it a “Close Encounter of the 5th Kind.”

Washington is also home to NBC's long-running program "Meet the Press," where on Sunday morning former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Obama’s biggest Republican endorsement to date paired with news of his biggest fundraising haul yet — $150 million in September. Fittingly, then, The Washington Times couples the two items with the headline “Obama Gains $150 million, Powell’s nod.”

But the election is far from over, said Republican nominee John McCain: "I love being the underdog."

So, it seemed for a while, did baseball’s Boston Red Sox. They fell behind three games to one in their American League Championship Series with the Tampa Bay Rays and pushed the series to a Game 7 before losing last night, 3-1. The Nashua, N.H., Telegraph bemoaned that, for the Sox, the “Magic runs out,” while in Florida reality trumps magic. The Tampa Tribune proclaims: “It’s For Real!”

The Rays advance to play the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, which begins Wednesday.

Hicks Wogan is a staff assistant at the Newseum.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

A few cracks in story of Joe the Plumber

By John Maynard

While the economy remains topic du jour in the nation’s newspapers, it’s a bald plumber named Joe who’s clogging up a lot of front-page space today.

Wall Street continues to perform like a wildly gyrating elevator with the Dow Jones shooting up over 400 points yesterday. A front page headline on The Day (New London, Conn.) reads positively frantic: “It’s down. No, it’s up again! No, it’s down…”

Seniors got some good news yesterday with the announcement that Social Security checks are going up almost 6% next year and several papers take note. “Seniors secure a raise,” blares The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City. “Social Security gets pay raise,” reads the banner headline in The Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wis.).

But Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher is the man today. In Wednesday’s presidential debate, John McCain said the plumber would be negatively affected by Barack Obama’s tax plan. Obama disagreed and, from there, Joe’s name was volleyed back and forth like a cheap rubber gasket.

His 15 minutes arrived.

“Move over, Britney,” writes the Los Angeles Times above a story about the plumber’s new-found fame. “Much ado about Joe,” declares The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.).

Upon further review, though, it turns out that Joe doesn’t have a plumbing license, owes back taxes to the state of Ohio and might not be hurt by Obama’s tax plan after all.

“Joe the Plumber? His tale has a few leaks,” is how The Miami Herald put it. “‘Joe the plumber’ story springs a few leaks,” counters the Idaho Statesman in Boise.

Some papers focused on their own “Local Joes.” The Ventura County (Calif.) Star profiles plumber Joe Lara, who recalls how media from around the world contacted him Wednesday night mistakenly thinking he was the plumber referenced in the debate.

A Providence Journal story headlined “Just Ask Joe” interviews plumbers in Rhode Island — named Joe — about their presidential picks.

Finally, this Red Sox fan would be remiss not to note the team’s miraculous and historic comeback last night from a 7-0 deficit against the Tampa Bay Rays in game 5 of the American League playoffs. “Heartbreaker,” writes the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times about its team’s 8-7 loss.

As any Red Sox fan can tell you, we know all about heartbreak.

John Maynard is an exhibits writer at the Newseum.

Shock Jock Docks at Newseum for Morning Show

ABC Radio host Don Imus became the latest of a long list of nationally syndicated radio stars to broadcast his show live at the Newseum. "Imus in the Morning" aired Oct. 16, 2008, from the Newseum’s Knight TV Studio.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

Not debatable: Gloves off, Dow down

By Patty Rhule

There was little debate in newsrooms about the top news today: The final presidential debate and the stock market’s second-worst plunge.

In GOP candidate John McCain’s home state of Arizona, The Dispatch reported “Both take off the gloves” with a sidebar called “Check their facts” inside. (On the same page, a story about a debate among candidates for the state House said, “Politicians turn from kitty cats to pit bulls.” No mention of lipstick, however.)

“Final debate gets tough and personal,” said the North County Times in Escondido, Calif., with a dramatic photo of the candidates and debate moderator Bob Schieffer. The lead story was “Yet another precipitous Dow plunge.”

“McCain doesn’t seal the deal,” said the Los Angeles Times’s front-page analysis.

“Verbal fisticuffs,” said the Los Angeles Daily News, with a boxing theme that was echoed in other newspapers.

The San Diego Union-Tribune presented the debate facial expressions of Democratic candidate Barack Obama and McCain, with “As McCain presses, Obama parries in sharp exchanges.”

“Red October,” said the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, with a simple yet elegant graphic reflecting the grim stock market month atop its debate package labeled, “Offense …” for McCain and “… Defense” for Obama.

Many newspapers concluded it was Joe the Plumber, a man whose question to Obama about tax policy became a debate theme, who was the star of the debate. “Battle for Average Joe,” said the Chicago Sun-Times.

That would be Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio, and Toledo’s Blade had a story on his thoughts about the debate.

The Seattle Times summed up Joe’s significance: “Who is Joe the plumber? An Ohio man looking to buy a business became a symbol of the middle class.”

The Yakima Herald-Republic in Washington took a cue from Eastern religious philosophy, tagging the final debate “The Tao of Joe.”

prhule@newseum.org Patty Rhule is a project editor at the Newseum.

Media Failed To Make Cents of Financial Crisis?

By Bridget Gutierrez, Newseum exhibits writer

Crisis. Bailout. Fears. Panic.

Since mid-September, chaos on Wall Street has dominated newspaper front pages across the country. Now a global financial meltdown is making headlines worldwide, and some are asking what role journalists played in the crisis.

A recent series of headlines on Tina Brown’s new Web site, "The Daily Beast," summed up some of the sentiments: Is the Press Spooking the Market? Should Reporters Go To Jail? Did Jim Cramer Sink the Dow?

Early on, critics charged the media with fear-mongering, saying overhyped reports were contributing to the disaster. Others blamed journalists for not realizing potential problems in the markets, and then warning the public.

"As in the savings and loan scandal of the late 1980s, the press was a day late and several dollars short," longtime press critic Howard Kurtz concluded in The Washington Post last Monday.

CNBC correspondent Charlie Gasparino even apologized for the perceived failures: "What we didn’t understand was that this was building up," Gasparino told Kurtz. "We all bear responsibility to a certain extent."

Some reporters had looked skeptically at the financial issues, particularly in the subprime mortgage industry, months ago. Media columnist David Carr of The New York Times defended that reporting.

"After large-scale financial disasters, the press is usually criticized — often justly — for ignoring the problem, but it’s hard to make that case with the subprime mess," Carr wrote late last month. "If no one saw this coming, they were not looking."

An exhibit on the media and the financial crisis can be found in the Newseum’s News Corporation News History Gallery, where historic newspapers from the Great Depression also are on display.

Today's Front Pages Analysis

Rays score a win, Californians lose homes, debate up for grabs

By Kate Kennedy

Today’s front pages declare some winners and losers. Let’s take a look.

Winners

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party: “Déjà vu: Tory minority,” the Toronto Star declared after Harper was re-elected in Tuesday’s federal election. Explained The Globe and Mail of Toronto: “Canadians give the Tories a stronger mandate to steer the country through stormy economic times — but they deny Harper total control.”

Motorists: Amid the economic gloom and doom, gas prices are a bright spot. “Gas at less than $3 per gallon stops Salem drivers in their tracks,” said the Statesman Journal in Oregon.

Tampa Bay Rays: The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Ti