News, nostalgia and inspiration at the Newseum

On our first visit to Washington, D.C., in 25 years, my wife and I went to the Newseum, located at 6th Street and Constitution Avenue. Neither of us was sure what the Newseum would be like, but we paid our entry fee and began exploring the six levels of exhibits about newspapers, news reporting, and history.

It was a worthwhile visit, although the galleries and corridors and stairs could be a maze. Of particular interest to us were a video presentation of reporters talking about their response to 9/11. They were at work in Manhattan when the terrorists crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center. Watching the scenes and hearing the reporters' disbelief (like all of us) that this could be happening, took us back to that horrific day 16 years ago. Despite the life-risking dangers as the towers fell and thousands died, the reporters swallowed their personal feelings, fears and concerns for themselves, their friends and their families, and continued to report what was happening.

I couldn't help thinking that the current president of the United States called these self-sacrificing reporters "enemies of the people" and purveyors of "fake news." The close-up video of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center was so terrifying and so clearly an airliner aimed directly at the building that I once again could not understand how anyone could deny that this tragedy was carried out by Islamic terrorists who hijacked four aircraft in a well-planned and malevolent plot against the United States. Yet some conspiracy theorists even today say the whole thing was carried out by the federal government.

Another exhibit in the Newseum examined the relationship of President John F. Kennedy with the press. Kennedy seemed to enjoy sparring with reporters at news conferences, and an interview video shows Kennedy saying that the  adversarial relationship between the press and the government is a natural and healthy thing. Another exhibit celebrated JFK on the 100th anniversary of his birth. These exhibits gave me a flood of nostalgia. The grief I had felt in 1963 was renewed hearing this brilliant, articulate, inspiring and short-lived president. I could not avoid a comparison between this man, who wrote books and regularly read 15 newspapers a day, to the current president, who boasts that he never reads books and requires the White House staff to limit any briefing papers, no matter how complex the issue, to one page. How far we have fallen!

Another Newseum exhibit was a 50th anniversary look back at the civil rights era of the 1960s. The cruelty of segregation and the officials who responded to protesters with violence were exceeded only by the murders of many civil rights advocates and bystanders. It's an era worth remembering not only because of the illogical cruelty and oppression but also to be reminded of how far we have come.

The Newseum is a stop to include on your Washington trip. I only wish the museum had offered a discount if I showed my old press pass (I still have it).