The Newseum

The trip to the Newseum yesterday was a pleasant surprise for me. I usually enjoy museums, but for some reason the prospect of looking at a bunch of old newspapers didn't appeal to me that much. After experiencing the first exhibit of the Pulitzer-prize-winning photographs, however, I was hooked. The Pulitzer photos themselves were both moving and often disturbing; the stories of the photographers who took those photos were even more intriguing. Usually I look at a photograph and see it from the photographer's perspective but don't really take the time to think about the actual person behind the lense. While looking at some of the most disturbing pictures, such as the one with the man burning to death and about to be executed in the jungle, I found myself wondering what kind of person could just stand by and take a picture while such an atrocity was happening right in front of them. After reading about how one photo journalist was haunted for the rest of his life because he didn't pick up a malnurished girl and carry her to the feeding ground, I became much more sympathetic to the complexity of the photographers' situations, and the way in which i viewed the pictures themselves was completely altered.
While the news history exhibit was probably my other favorite, the September 11 gallery was by far the most moving. I was somewhat dubious entering this exhibit because it's always a difficult topic. One of the front pages displayed on the wall from that day had the simple headline: "BASTARDS!", which I thought was both amusing and telling of the strong emotions felt throughout the country on that day. The most powerful part of the exhibit was the film chronicalling different journalists and their experiences. The public always tends to demonize reporters as paranas who will do anything possible to get a story. I found the film particularly interesting because each reporter talked about their internal struggle between the human instinct to get as far away from the trade center as possible and the reporter's instinct to get closer and to get it on film. Although the Newseum has an obvious pro-reporter slant, I thought this film (and the museum as a whole) did a good job of portraying reporters as not just soulless wolves looking for a scrap of information but as people who truly feel a responsibility to inform the public.