A museum that has to proclaim its mission statement from a 74-foot-tall slab of marble may have a bit of an inferiority complex. Approach the Newseum, the new museum in Washington, D.C. that’s dedicated to the news, and it’s impossible to miss the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution written in block letters on the museum’s façade.

The Newseum is huge, and it is immensely proud of its scope and scale. The “By the Numbers” page on its Web site proclaims the total number of words in the museum’s displays (100,000) and the weight of the artifacts in the exhibits (81,000 pounds). That same page compares the size of the Newseum’s atrium to the Sistine Chapel’s. It figures the Newseum’s would be taller by 22 feet.

I visited the Newseum last weekend on a trip to our nation’s capital. Fresh from my first week at USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism, I hoped to learn more about the profession I was joining and how its proponents were portraying it to the outside world.

The Newseum is a study in contrasts – it is both patently ridiculous and powerfully moving. There are quotes from people like Thurgood Marshall and Philip Graham (past publisher of the Washington Post), inscribed in stone on each level of the museum. Apparently stone = gravitas. It often feels like the museum is forcing things, and nothing gives this impression more than the museum’s “4-D” movie, complete with shaking seats and blasting air. The short film tells the story of three enterprising journalists throughout history who fought to tell their stories. The acting is bad and the 3-D effects are predictably cheesy.

The best parts of the museum are when the curators allow the stories journalists have covered to speak for themselves. A wall in the exhibit dedicated to Sept. 11 is covered floor-to-ceiling with the front pages of papers from around the world covering the day’s horrible events. The headline writers’ interpretations of the terrorist attacks form a powerful collage. (The San Francisco Chronicle’s extra edition proclaiming “Bastards!” was a crowd favorite.)

An exhibit on Pulitzer Prize-winning photography (predictably called “the most comprehensive collection of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs ever assembled”) features some of the most iconic images of the 20th century, accompanied by interviews and videos of the photographers explaining the shots they took. This is journalism coming alive. It’s moving to see fear, compassion, sadness and joy perfectly captured, and the effect is to demonstrate that this kind of high-quality journalism does matter. Most of the prize-winning photographs were taken during wars or natural disasters, often-times telling stories the public otherwise wouldn’t have known about. The message of the Newseum is that journalists report the truth and change the world; the photography exhibit conveys that message without hitting viewers over the head.

Slate’s Jack Shafer soundly criticized the Newseum prior to its opening in February, mocking its enormous cost ($450 million) and exhibits sponsored by media conglomerates like News Corp., Cox Enterprises, Comcast and Time Warner. He wrote, “You don’t think News Corp. and the Sulzbergers would lend their names and money to an enterprise that would sink a shiv into the press, do you?”

Ironically, the interactive exhibit on ethics wasn’t operational for our visit.

Yet, there was more self-criticism than I expected. A panel in one exhibit asked, “Who controls the news?” and called attention to media companies like Disney and GE that have news divisions. Walls on new media and the transition to reporting in the 21st century acknowledged that online revenue streams haven’t made up for the decline in print advertising.

Granted, the Newseum asked more questions than it provided answers. There were no predictions about what reading the news would be like in 25 years. I assume its because the curators of the museum (and the industry as a whole) haven’t got a clue.

The Newseum is like a giant sign that screams, “We are still relevant!” Does it suggest a bit of desperation? Absolutely. Quotes in marble aren’t going to convince anyone that the press is still serving the public. The museum was full of visitors, however, despite the $20 entrance fee. In a town where most other museums are free, this is notable. Were tourists learning about a dynamic and changing industry, or visiting the relics of a bygone era, much like the natural history museum down the street? A little of both, no doubt.

After touring the Newseum, I walked around the Washington Mall, stopping at some of the many war memorials. This is when the power of the press hit home for me. The news is a living, breathing monument that doesn’t need the the passage of time for validation. The Vietnam War Memorial conveys the nation’s shame and sorrow for a war it needlessly fought, and honor for the soldiers who died in that war. But photographs of a napalm attack and reporting on the My Lai massacre trigger similar emotions upon reflection.

Moving, well-reported journalism will do more to sustain the profession than a museum ever will. And at its best, the Newseum shows us this when it lets the stories speak for themselves, without the aid of lofty words carved in stone.

Tags: Newseum, press, Washington