I got out of Gotham last weekened for a long-planned trip to the U.S. capital. Friday night I hit an old watering hole from my days at American University (class of ‘87 for anyone who is wondering) and Saturday evening took in a Nationals game. The “Nats” play baseball about as well as Congress legislates — which is to say not very well at all, but, hey, if the shoe fits.
By far the highlight of the weekend was a visit to the recently opened Newseum, which is dedicated to the history of the news media. It’s outstanding. I was there a good three hours and barely scratched the surface.
There’s an incredibly moving exhibit of Pulitzer-Prize winning photographs, featuring a film with the backstory on images that have been burned into America’s consciousness (Jack Ruby blowing away Lee Harvey Oswald; Vietnamese children running away from the effects of a napalm bomb; a firefigher cradling an injured infant after the Oklahoma City bombing). I could barely make it through the 9/11 exhibit, still having a difficult time processing what happened that awful day.
Guilty of being human I needed something to get me out of the funk I fell into viewing some of the 9/11 exhibit, so afterward I checked out editorial cartoons (provided by The New Yorker). They’re all hilarious, but, to me, the funniest one in the pack is a cartoon of a bunch of white guys sitting in a TV studio with the caption (more or less): “Here we are on a media program to talk about the media and examine how the media influence media.” (It’s funny because it’s true.)
“G-Men and Journalists: Top News Stories of the FBI’s First Century,” is riveting. The exhibit examines the (often tortured) relationship between the news media and the FBI as seen through some of the most notorious crime cases of the last century. They’re all here: the Lindbergh baby kidnapping; the kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst; the D.C. sniper, with addendant artifacts. But the most compelling (and creepy) part of this particular exhibit is the Unabomber’s cabin, from where he hatched his diabolical schemes that killed three people and injured 23 others. What’s even scarier is reading (the rather lucid) excerpts from the anti-technology manifesto the Unabomber sent to The New York Times and The Washington Post. “G-Men” reminded me of what my dad once said about the Police: “Everyone hates cops. Until they need one.”
One final word about Newseum: Go!
