Newseum

Yesterday afternoon we participated in a team building exercise at the Newseum. It's a four-hour long studio experience designed to improve communication skills among a group of coworkers or colleagues while also allowing them to experiencing the excitement of producing a newscast. We were the test group.

The six of us joined about 12 other people of different professions for the exercise and we created a TV show from writing the script to recording the show. Everyone had a different job. I was the video clips operator. I decided to join the technical production team rather than the writers and producers because I wanted to try something I had never done before. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed my job more than I thought I would.

Today we returned to the Newseum and spent the entire day there, this time as tourists. I loved it. Six floors of world history as recorded and told by journalists. We saw a section of the Burlin Wall and walked into a Berlin watch tower. We read front pages of newspapers from all over the world covering every major news event. A special exhibit documenting the FBI's first 100 years consisted of photos and letters from the Waco disaster and the actual cabin the unabomber lived in for twenty years.


My favorite exhibit but also the most difficult to look at was of Pulitzer Prize winning photographs throughout time. Most I had seen before, but even after seeing them three or ten times I am never less affected.