Centerfield

The Newseum

A friend just tipped me to The Newseum, a museum in Washington, D.C. that's devoted to, well, the news. As stated on the website,

The Newseum — a 250,000-square-foot museum of news — offers visitors an experience that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits. ...

The Newseum features seven levels of galleries, theaters, retail spaces and visitor services. It offers a unique environment that takes museumgoers behind the scenes to experience how and why news is made.

The coolest part of the website is a feature called Today's Front Pages. It shows maps of many different countries, with a dot on specific cities. When you click the dot, you get a screenshot of the front page of that city's newspaper. Then you can either download the front page as a .pdf file, or you can click a link to go to the paper's website. The site also has many other valuable research services.

When I read a news report in a major paper like The Washington Post or The New York Times, or a wire service report, I often wonder what the local paper is reporting on the same story. There's often a different take on an event in Kansas as seen from New York and as seen from the place in Kansas where the event occurred. Sometimes even the facts are different.

If you haven't been to The Newseum website yet, and particularly to Today's Front Pages, check it out.

(This article was also posted at Opinion Forum.)