Washington, DC

I had planned to get to the Newseum Grand Opening early and see the block party festivities, but since I was at the Nats game last night I did not get to bed until midnight. Then this morning I was on target to leave my apartment by 8am, but I got distracted by of all things writing my Nats game wrap up post about last night’s game. Thus I got to the Newseum just as they were shooting off the confetti as a sign of the opening, although the doors did not open for another 10 minutes when it was actually 9am. When I got there the line was on Pennsylvania past the Canadian Embassy next door and it was just as long when I left the Newseum around noon. By the way it only took 30 minutes to get inside, which is pretty fast considering everyone in front of me has to go through one of only two metal detectors (i.e. you actually take all the metal stuff out of your pockets and put in a plastic bag they provide or your own backpack/purse and not like the Smithsonian where most of the time the metal detectors are off and you just have your bag searched).

Once inside the Newseum it was kind of crowded throughout my visit and especially annoying where all the school groups that were hard to slip past or just plain were in the way. I think it is great that school groups visit this museum, but they allowed way too many to come in the group entrance today when there was also a very big crowd coming in as non-groups on Pennsylvania Avenue. I think they realized this, though, and were addressing the issue because near when I was leaving I overheard one of the workers saying to stagger the groups more because there was still a lot of people at the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance. Also, the school groups were overall not obnoxious, but it was just that they moved in big masses and were impossible to negotiate past when they were at a standstill or cross there path when you were trying to go opposite of where they were headed.

In the almost three hours I was at the Newseum I definitely did not see everything, but it was kind of hard to get up to the displays sometimes because of the crowd and I often felt the crowd pushing you along even when you were not ready to move on. I did still enjoy the Newseum and believe it is worth the normal $20 admission, although I am glad to have gotten in free today. I think there will be less crowds when there is admission and they will do a little better job of controlling the amount of people inside at a time then, which they were doing a little, but not enough.

One of the best things about the Newseum is the interactive exhibits. One I personally tried was the Be A Reporter one in which you interview characters to get the facts on a new story in a video game like environment on a touch screen monitor. There are headphones to listen to what the characters are saying, however they are kind of loud and I could not get the volume part to work to lower it. You do not need the headphones, though, because the text of what they say also appears on the screen. Another cool interactive thing is this thing where you float your hand above it to move you character to answer ethical questions.

One of the highlight exhibits is the 9/11 exhibit. Another is the Berlin Wall and Guard Tower. I will have more about the specific exhibits in my Special Topic Tuesday post on April 15.