The New Newseum
Some lucky window washer in Washington is about to get a tremendous contract.
An enormous amount of glass has been incorporated on the front of a magnificent new building that rises on Pennsylvania Avenue. The view from the Newseum sweeps up to the Capitol to the left and gazes over the great Smithsonian museums and the Mall. You can't quite see the White House, but on a crisp spring morning, the vista from the sixth floor portico is just fabulous. It's destined to become the site of a million TV stand-ups... With the Capitol dome glowing in the background, a windblown correspondent concludes, all we here in Washington can do, is watch, wait, and wonder.
I was lucky enough to get a preview of this exciting project yesterday and walk through a construction site where, come next fall, thousands of visitors will tour galleries devoted to the history of journalism -- somebody made reference to Thoth, the Egyptian god of scribes -- up to the internet. You'll be able to do your own TV standup in front of a blue screen with any backdrop you want, there's a digital newsroom, you can have your choice of photographs critiqued by a virtual picture editor and make some of the ethical decisions that reporters face... if you're wrong, there's a big blank spot on the front page of the newspaper.
But the initial impression is likely to be the fifty tons of Tennessee marble that hangs on the front of the Newseum, where the First Amendment has been carved in stone. That's about a ton a word.
Gotta run.
5:50 AM ET | 05-16-2007 | permalink
