Models of TV news helicopter and communication satellite are “hovering” in the lobby atrium, below – high resolution LED display, broadcasting all the events inside Newseum.

But the real pride of the Newseum is an interactive newsroom offering a chance for every visitor to try his hand as a newsmaker, and a television studio, where you can turn into an anchor.

Everybody would probably agree that most Ukrainians associate museums with guides and their boring speeches producing a better effect than sleeping pills instead of making visitors excited about tours.

Making teenagers visit the place and watch stuff of a Ukrainian literature genius or 250,000-year-old dust-covered bones of an extinct mammoth is perhaps within powers of only a secondary school teacher. And only instead of a biology or literature lesson.

In Western countries museums have been one of the most popular places combining the good and the pleasant - fun and education – for long. Long queues in front of museums in European capital cities have become a standard scene as everything you can observe inside costs 10 euro and half an hour of waiting.

PinchukArtCentre widely introducing modern European art to Ukrainians is probably the only exception that can boast of flows of visitors in Ukraine today. However, its boom reminds pretty much of the opening day of the first sex-shop in Podol area, where, by the way, most residents of Kiev and its guests went on tour too…

So, what are Ukrainian museums lacking of? Why are they getting outdated conceptually and physically in spite of sometimes exceptional collection of masterpieces, exhibits and archives?

You can answer these questions if you think of a museum not as a storage of old things but a place where the future starts.

American museums: Interactions free of charge

Most US museums work to a simple formula: interaction in everything, knowledge through entertainment, and simplicity of information. All that help visitors find answers to their questions and, more important, to understand how it works (doesn't matter what is being discussed).

Say, in Washington has a wide range of museums to any taste – Spy, Masonic, Post, Aviation, Space, etc. There are a lot of art galleries including modern art centers. Nearly all of them offer a free entrance.

Inside any museum children can play interactive games, move various parts and mechanisms of exhibits, watch 3-D movies explaining difficult phenomena in a simple and interesting way. For example, the structure of solar system or how aircrafts take off.

Besides, all exhibits are regularly updated with new information and hi-tech devices. In addition, museums target to attract big audience, not just specific groups of specialists. Both ten-year-old child and a professor of Harvard University can get interesting and useful information there.

Needless to say that each museum offers an excellent infrastructure from fast foods to souvenir shops that contribute significantly to aesthetic satisfaction. 

That's why Americans go to an interactive museum in families. It sometimes takes the whole weekend day and replaces some entertainments.

News Museum in Washington – you are on air!

The museum of news in Washington is touted as one of the most interactive news museums in the world. Its name Newseum comes from English “news” and “museum”.

Newseum is one of the most popular destinations for everybody interested in media. You can find literally everything about history and future development of journalism. You make the first step and the world of one of the most mysterious and exciting professions becomes closer and clearer for each museum-goer. It contains real newsrooms, studios and a plenty of interactive facilities giving a chance to get in a news junky shoes.

A giant 70,000 square-meters Newseum is located in the heart of Washington D. C. A tour starts in the upper observation room with a magnificent view of the U. S. Capitol.

Then comes a latest press review. A huge display features front pages of global dailies to skim.

Newseum is really proud of a giant piece of the Berlin Wall. According to guides, it was strong enough to stop tanks but could not curb the stream of news and information broadcast over radio, television and by citizens from West to East Berlin. It was the information that broke closed system and destroyed the Wall.

The gallery of news history houses an enormous collection of newspapers and magazines. The database contains print and e-copies of editions. Any visitor can find required information about particular publication or magazine easily. By pressing a button on a LED display you can skim what news events were highlighted on a particular date for example by The Washington Post 30 years ago.

The same displays offer you to test your knowledge of the journalism history and show your awareness of the mostly discussed events in the modern world.

The exhibition devoted to the 11 September, 2001 terrorist attacks is worth special attention. A display shows front pages of the global newspapers published the day after the tragedy titled “Terrorist Attacks on America” and photos of destroyed Twin Towers.

You are welcome to watch a documentary about the journalists who covered those events of 11 September 2001. Reporters who witnessed that day tell their stories.

Screens show frames that usually aren't on air after cutting. Here is an American reporter filming a “stand up” with a World Trade Centre tower on the background when it starts to fall down like a melting candle right in the shot. He cries out last words about the danger and then the camera shows the ground being covered with dust and wreckage of the giant building. And here is a woman covered with dust heavily yet lucky to have survived. And now we see terrifying shots with people jumping out of skyscraper windows …

The final exhibit is massive fragment of a broadcast antenna from one of the Twin Towers that wasn’t destroyed in the disaster.

The Newseum hosts a lot of mini-cinemas and video screens, each of them displays its story. One of the theatres invites you to watch a film about well-known sports reporters, the other showcases journalistic investigations.

But two of them are the most spectacular. The first one features the most shocking events during the past decades in the world ranging from assassination of the President Kennedy to sexual scandal with Bill Clinton involved.

The widescreen the video is displayed on makes the major appeals. A 30-meter-long screen shows videos appearing in different parts followed by a photo slide-show scattered across the canvas.

The second cinema is equipped with 4D high-tech facilities. It means you shouldn't take a comfortable chair if your nerves are shattered. During a twenty minutes story about dedicated reporters you will be blown all over with air, sprinkled with water, and shaken in your chair.

This makes you feel as Edward Marrow reporting from the roof of a London house during the World War II, and then a journalist Nelly Bly, who had to live in a mental house and suffer from outrageous attitude of the staff to conduct here journalistic investigation.

The museum managers didn’t forget about the latest media as well. One of the showrooms traces the Internet and digital technologies that help journalists.

Visitors can learn the concept of Journalism of the Future that aims at multi-skilled reporters who can write texts, make pictures, shoot videos, and upload that on the web.

The Journalists Memorial paying tribute to reporters, photographers and broadcasters who died reporting the news or in the process of getting the stories to their readers, listeners and viewers stands out in the Newseum. A glass panel includes names of 1,800 journalists from around the globe that experienced fatality of the profession. The list contains names of six Ukrainian journalists, including Georgiy Gongadze, Igor Alexandrov, Taras Protsuk, and others.

A separate exhibition hall is devoted to thousands of Pulitzer Prize Winners in Photo Nomination. It demonstrates pictures, which shook the world.

But the real pride of the Newseum is an interactive newsroom offering a chance for every visitor to try his hand as a newsmaker, and a television studio, where you can turn into an anchor.

Children are especially keen of being filmed with microphones in their hands. They can watch themselves in a simulated air program broadcast by LED displays of museum and take home the tape with their TV debut.

Newseum offers much more interesting and useful things – a world map comparing press freedom around the world according to Freedom House; wreckage of the car of American journalist Don Bowl, where dynamite was put in; the doors of the Warergate Hotel that led to the scandal resulting in dismissal of Richard Nixon, President of the USA…   

Needless to say that you will definitely want to stay in such a museum as long as you can. Isn’t it true that this first acquaintance with the job is useful for would-be journalists?

The situation in Ukraine is different though. Museums keep out-of-date exhibits and secondary school students are forced to come and watch. They find actual interactive joy at best in a near-by Internet-café. 

Journalist have traveled to Washington under the Digital Future of Journalism program.

12 May, 2008.
Source: Ukrainskaya Pravda-Zhyzn
Адрес статьи: http://life.pravda.com.ua/surprising/4828520070808