Allen H. Neuharth, the high-profile founder of USA Today, has launched his latest journalistic venture - a high-tech "Newseum" to tell an ever-changing tale of news.
"News is the global glue that brings free societies together. The Newseum will foster that bonding with living history," said Neuharth, now chairman of the Freedom Forum, a foundation devoted to "free press, free speech and free spirit."Scheduled to open in 1997 and located just across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the $28.3 million Newseum will feature:
- An electronic "news wall" as long as a city block, displaying daily front pages from newspapers in every state plus several foreign countries and up-to-the-minute broadcast news sent via satellites. Organizers said the news wall will show "more real-time news feeds than any other place in the world."
- A theater showing an overview film about news on a huge high-definition TV screen.
- A news history walk that shows the story of news gathering and reporting, from early speech to satellite journalism.
- Newsrooms, a TV studio and a forum where visitors can watch the processing of "raw news" for publication and programming as well as discussing news issues with journalists and newsmakers.
- Interactive archives and exhibits where visitors can work on their own newspapers and news shows.
"The key aspect of what news is is a sense of immediacy. This whole museum, unlike any other museum, is based on real time," said designer Ralph Applebaum, who was also the architect of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. "It's not prepackaged history."
The Newseum is the latest creation by Neuharth, the former Gannett Co. chairman and founder of USA Today. Neuharth's ideas about newspapers - fast-forward focus, short stories and lots of color and graphics - have changed journalism, sometimes to the dismay of more traditional journalists.
"I think there is more awareness of news and hunger for news and information than ever," Neuharth said. "And its not because of newspapers. It's because of cable and the satellite. They see it on the tube. I think we can capitalize on that" with the high-tech Newseum.
The 55,000-square foot facility - about the same size as the Holocaust Museum - will be located in and around what are now the lower three floors of the Freedom Forum World Center in Arlington, Va., near the USA Today headquarters. Founded in 1935, the Freedom Forum was known as the Gannett Foundation until 1991, when its 10 percent ownership in the Gannett Co. was sold for $670 million. Many of its officers, like Neuharth, are former Gannett executives.