Newseum! Read all about it!

Journo bliss.

I’m at the Newseum.

Of all the museums on this epic road trip, this is the one which has my heart beating fastest.

This is the sacred site of journalists. Well, it should be.

Oddly, it is not so much a mecca for journalists as it is an education portal for the people of Washington. They throng to this vast storage house of media history with friends and children. They take out memberships and treat it with the same prestige value as some people treat the phenomenon of Friends of the Art Gallery.

But perhaps this is because the Newseum still is not as internationally known as it should be.

It is only about five years old in Washington DC, albeit it began in another place in Virginia years before. This explains the scope and sophistication of its collection. It is run not by the media as such but by the Freedom Forum, an organisation set up to support the free press.

But for us journos, it is heaven on a stick, starting with its serendipitous pun of a name.

It’s in a prime location on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol.And it is vast, so tall with its seven floors that it can and does hang a helicopter in the atrium.

Outside, along the street, today's front pages from newspapers all over the land are displayed. They are a lure in themselves and I have to drag myself inside.

I have the most astonishing interaction at the ticketing desk. Having been told there is no discount for journos, I admit to being a senior for a price cut. While processing the tickets, the rather charming African American woman comments on how much she loves my fragrance. What is it? I explain that it is a dowdy little Australian flower called Boronia. She asks if she may have a little dab of it to wear to brighten her day. I fish out my little bottle of fragrance, hand it over and tell her please to keep it with good spirit from Australia. She is overwhelmed. Reciprocate, reciprocate, she exclaims. The next thing we know, she has credited our admission and comped our entry.

It is a very good start.

And things just get better and better as I immerse myself in the exhibits.

Not that it is one of life’s cheery experiences.

Much of the world’s sorrow and violence is most graphically represented - with solid evidence.

There is a huge chunk of the Berlin Wall. Eight, 12-ft sections of it complete with the graffiti of the day

on one side . It is in a special gallery. Oppressive great cement abomination it is. Pitted. Worn. Loathed. One is suddenly aware of its monstrous scale. There’s even a reconstructed guards' tower behind it. The immediacy of this great symbol of division and deprivation, touching it, standing under it, stirs up memories of the news reports of the time, all the bids for freedom over the wall, the deaths, the fear and cruelty…and one’s heart aches.

Actually, the old heart aches a lot at the Newseum.

Good news is thin on the ground. The Newseum points out the link between news and media, who are the conveyors of the news, the on-the

-spot history reporters, the ones who from Caxton on, have recorded and disseminated the goings on - man’s cruelty to man, injustice, madness, and crime.

Among the exhibits is the communications tower from the top of the Wold Trade Centre - a tangled, torture of metal, a solid remnant of a most awful, awful day.

There are charred cellphones which were found ringing plaintively in the rubble.

There’s freelance photographer Bill Biggart’s cameras, camerabag, and ID. He was out walking the dog when he saw the first plane hit the World Trade Centre. He rushed home for his

camera and began shooting - his last reel of film.

There is a documentary on 9/11 which is full of footage I, for one, have never before seen and rich in gripping narratives from those on the spot, particularly the journalists and photographers who kept the reports coming through despite the catastrophic surroundings. These are particularly poignant for us journos, seeing our peers reacting to crisis on so many levels, the courage, diligence, and discipline. The heart aches a whole lot more in the 9/11 room.

I weep.

Then there is the other world of terrorism. The mad shoe bomber’s shoe. Cars bombed and cars used by bombers. There’s even the wooden cabin in which the mad Unabomber lived and plotted in Montana.

This museum has all the evidence. Somehow it has used its newshound persistence and managed to bring together the artefacts and relics of major news stories.

The narratives on and around the displays fill in the gaps as to who and what and when and where - and how the stories unfolded and what befell the perpetrators.

They bring to life the investigators, the government agencies, the investigation experts,

and the cyber detectives.

You can’t rush around the Newseum. One is stopped in one’s tracks every few steps by something terrible and memorable.

There are light spots, however. There’s a huge interactive area devoted to the new technology. The Internet and digital media. There’s a working newsroom and a high-tech operations centre whence all the videos and displays of the Newseum are headquartered.

Then there’s the vast acreage of screens devoted to the Vietnam War. One sits and watches reports on the reporting of the war that was so wrong. It is graphic.

Heartrending. Regrets, recriminations. One weeps again.

Of course, for many visitors to the Newseum, this is history from before their lifetimes. It is here for them to learn, not recall.

And I am probably one of the few in that place having a wee whoop of excitement as we come upon the News Corporation’s History of News Gallery. Adelaide’s place in the history of News Corp gets a mention. Of course.

This is a very dense and information-heavy area of the Newseum. Of course.

I wish I could run pictures of it all. I am lost there for blissful hours. Drifting around among other people similarly engaged. There is a lovely spirit of intelligent absorption. This is an important place. And, to round out the picture, it even includes contemporary parodies on the Newseum by the likes of Stephen Colbert.

There are memories in there of

things like teleprinters and, oh, the dear old typewriters. I have a wee purr of nostalgia.

I could go on and on. The Newseum does.

Women’s role in the media, notable women as well as men are covered. Foreign correspondents and war reporters. There are news vehicles. Clothes worn in the field. ..

I am particularly moved by the Journalists’ Memorial section which points out that journalism is a dangerous profession. As well as journalists jailed and detained, there is the death toll in war zones. It is a huge toll. The Newseum remembers the fallen. It has a giant wall of photos and video tributes running.

It also has a car pock marked with bullet holes…a car in which journalists died. One can only stare at it in stunned grief.

This vast place has an upper floor balcony walk whence one can enjoy the air and the view of Pennsylvania Avenue. It has a cafe. It has gift shops. And, it has the most wonderful lavatories. People take far longer to have a pee at the Newseum because there are mad old newspaper bloopers in tiles on the walls.

Yes. The Newseum has levity in the lavatory.