Washington Newcomers
Newseum’s ‘Window on The World’

Extra – Extra - Read all about it— a wonderful opportunity to take in the Washington museums that are capturing all the headlines. Our action-packed day begins with The Newseum –the only interactive museum of news. Go behind the scenes to learn how and why news is made! The seven-level museum features exhibits that wrap around a 90-foot atrium and include two television studios, 14 galleries and 15 theaters. Originally located in Arlington Va., it has been closed for five years while preparing for new digs - it’s now located within blocks of the Smithsonian museums and the National Mall.

After entering the Newseum and watching a 12-minute orientation film, we will board glass-enclosed elevators (the largest of their kind in the world), and be whisked to the sixth floor where the excitement begins.

In the News History Gallery, see how news has evolved from spoken stories to a worldwide information explosion. Be an eyewitness to history and come face to face with historic events that changed the world forever. Video monitors throughout the museum feature breaking news, and various interactive screens and temporary spaces are changed daily in response to current news. The great news stories of all time are brought to life by multimedia exhibits and you’ll experience the greatest display of historic newspapers, magazines, and vintage and contemporary newscasts ever assembled.

There is so much to see and do you could spend the day lost among its many treasures. A two-story glass and steel memorial contains the names of more than 1,600 journalists from around the world who died while reporting the news. There are Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs; an exhibit on how the media covered the events of Sept. 11, 2001; and the largest collection of original Berlin Wall sections outside of Germany.

One of the Newseum’s focal points is the inseparable link between news and freedom. A 74-foot-high marble engraving of the First Amendment graces the exterior of the museum; inside, a bevy of interactive exhibits, displays, films and artifacts explain the importance of the freedoms guaranteed by the amendment and how it differs in other countries.

Because this museum is on the pulse beat of our time, you will see recent additions such as a cell phone that was donated by a Virginia Tech student who sent CNN the footage from outside a campus building where a student gunman killed 32 people and himself last spring and a vest worn by ABC Newsman Bob Woodruff when he was badly injured in Iraq by a roadside bomb.

The 535- seat Annenberg Theater offers a multisensory movie experience with an 11- minute trip through history featuring Edward R. Murrow as a central character. Audience members will wear 3-D glasses, similar to an Imax film while they experience misting water, rumbling seats and other
“surprise special effects.”

The Smithsonian American Art Museum &
The National Portrait Gallery

The second stop on our newsworthy day is the reinvented American Art Museum and The National Portrait Gallery. After a six-year, $283 million makeover, they have become joint tenants of the venerated United States Patent Office, a 19th century landmark. The 2 museums share an interior reimagined with wider exhibition space, brighter lights, soaring arches and common entrances for their intersecting interpretations of United States history.

One of the museum’s most distinctive features is the Luce Foundation Center for American Art. This 3- floor, library-like “open-storage” facility is unique in that it will allow visitors, for the first time, to take a behind-the-scenes look at 3,300 works from the museum’s vaults that were not chosen for display in the public galleries. The display comprises a series of 64 glass cases and three banks of pull-out drawers that fill a gorgeous space of two mezzanines and a floor-level alcove. Just imagine a 20,400-square-foot walk-in closet with a marble bust of Benjamin Franklin and a WPA-era oil by Charles F. Quest, “The Builders,” propped on a shelf.

8:00 AM Departure for DC serving a full Diversions breakfast.

4:00 Depart for Baltimore enjoying cold drinks and snacks and the latest video interview between Charlie Rose and Warren Buffet filmed in May ’07. In Buffet we see a man whose grasp of international affairs and human behavior insure that when he talks, people listen. His keen observations on the current state of the press and its future will put the crowning touch on our day.

5:15 Arrival in Baltimore