So, since I had a day to kill before I could get back to Texas, I used it wisely and went to the Newseum, a museum all about journalism and news.  It opened in April 2008 at its current location, near the Smithsonian site, at Pennsylvania and 6th St. NW. It’s a must-see for any Journalism student or news junkie (I even got a “news junkie” t-shirt there).  They have some incredible artifacts, from pieces of the Berlin Wall to the antennae from the north tower of the World Trade Center.  The Pulitzer Gallery is very moving, really shows the power of images to evoke emotion.  It has a very good documentary of Pulitzer photographers talking about their work.

The convergence area was very good.  They had several screens that visitors could view different short movies about current topics like blogs, user-generated content, and mobile gadgets.  I was glad to see many of the watersheds that I discuss as landmarks in the online world were well represented, things like the role of bloggers in the Rathergate scandal, the cell phone video we all saw of the Virginia Tech shootings, the importance of YouTube illustrated via the Macaca tape shot of VA senator George Allen, the Drudge report’s implications, and even Twitter.

The visit made me very proud to be involved with media and helping to train future multimedia and interactive journalists.