Sorry, honey, I can't tonight ... I'm on deadline!

So I felt like a little bit of a journalism nerd today.

WJC went to the Newseum today for an all-day field trip. I won’t lie, I was a little skeptical, and I think I expected it to be a little hoaky just because of the name. A museum about newspapers? Really? But hey, it beat being in class, right?

But I honestly think it might be my most favorite museum I’ve ever been to. We got there at 10 a.m., and we were allowed to leave at 3, but I stayed until it closed at 5.

I started out on the first floor going through a room with all the Pulitzer Prize winning photos, complete with background information about the photo. Oh. My. Gosh. It was uplifting and inspiring as well as heartbreaking and utterly gut-wrenching. So many of the photos were of horrific war scenes or poverty. I cried multiple times in that one room. We also watched a documentary featuring some of the photographers who shared their experiences, and it made me gain even more respect for photojournalism, especially in international, war-torn regions. Those people sacrifice a lot of their safety and emotional sanity (viewing those scenes day-after-day would be devastating) to show what is really going on.

Some of the photos were graphic, like one of a body hung from a tree with a man beating it with a stick as a mob cheered him on. Or the photo of a mother and child in the air falling from a burning building (the mother died, the child miraculously didn’t.). The one that probably stuck with me the most was of a young African girl huddled on the ground, emaciated with her ribs pointing through her skin, as a buzzard behind her was watching for her to die. The description said that after the photo ran, the photographer was bombarded with angry letters asking him why he didn’t pick up the girl and save her, and he said that he wish he had. He later shot himself.

Three photos really stood out to me for reasons other than shock value, however. The first was of a soldier returning from combat with his family running out to meet him. Their expressions were amazing, and the daughter was leaping into him, arms outstretched, both feet off the ground. Another photo was of an African baby being passed back and forth between relatives across a fence dividing camps. The juxtaposition of the innocence of the child and the harshness and division of war was stunning and so moving. But my favorite photo by far is the 1958 winning photo of a police officer saying hi to a young boy looking up into his face. The boy’s expression is so innocent and full of awe, and I get choked up just looking at it … I don’t ever think I’ve seen such an expression captured so fully in photography.

After that I went up to the sixth floor (yes, there are six floors!) and looked through archives of newspapers. They were displaying newspapers of either media or historical significance all the way from the 1500s until the present, which were SO amazing to see. First of all, I was struck by how published media has evolved over the years. Secondly, I was fascinated by the history overview of 500 years, and it was so so so interesting to see how the media (rather than history books) covered things. Thirdly, I was struck by the role that minorities and women played in the media. As far back as the 1800s minorities and women were producing their own newspapers, which is absolutely amazing to me since they had virtually no rights. They did that entirely of their own ambition, and I look up to that so very much.

I also saw displays on radio, convergence, journalists who have died while on the field, the Berlin Wall (with a huge piece of the actual Wall!!) and 9/11, which was an amazing display, but the footage made me a mess. It’s amazing how now, 8 years later, I’m finally beginning to understand more of what that day meant for our nation and the degree of devastation from it. My heart breaks for those people. But this museum was absolutely amazing, and unlike the Smithsonians, it does cost money, but it’s entirely worth it. Such an amazing museum!! And there was a really fun trivia game that Rachelle and I played at least six times. It’s amazing how much we remembered from our Mass Media Law and Ethics class.

Then Andrea, Rachelle and I took the bus back and after a few minutes an older black man got on who appeared to be homeless and have some kind of disability with his arm. He sat down next to where I was standing and asked me to sit next to him and help him with something, so of course I asked him what it was. He pulled out a huge wad of crumpled up $1 bills and asked me if I could count it for him. So I sat there and smoothed them out and counted them one-by-one until I had counted $34.

He was really appreciative and asked me some questions about myself, so I told him I was a student from Southern California. Then I asked him if he had grown up in DC, and he said yes except for two years he spent in Asia. I pieced it together, but then he proceeded to confirm that he had been drafted into the Vietnam War in ’67 (maybe that was where his arm injury came from). I didn’t want to pry of course, so I just said that that must have been a difficult experience, and he told me that he still had bad dreams all the time. I asked him if he had any family in the area, and he said he had a 34-year-old daughter in Florida and that his mom was 89 and still lived in DC but has Parkinson’s.

We talked for a little bit about the like, but the conversation ended earlier than I would have liked when we reached my stop. It was such a humbling experience and reminded me how there are a lot of homeless veterans in DC, which is such a tragedy. And I won’t lie, I’ve definitely had some creepier/weirder encounters with homeless men on the bus, but this guy wasn’t like that at all. He was so appreciative for the help and very respectful and friendly. He just seemed very genuine, and I wish I could’ve talked with him longer. The whole concept of fighting for one’s country to return to the states and endure extreme poverty and homelessness breaks my heart. Now obviously I know there are more factors than that, but my heart really goes out to those people.

We had family dinner and then worship night. Which was much needed. I’m fighting to keep the right perspectives in place. Oh, and sometime tonight Rachelle and I had a massive speed round =) Peace!