Area journalism groups gather to celebrate the profession at iconic location
On Saturday, Sept. 21, we gathered in a place that is dedicated to great moments in our country’s history and the history of the world that were covered by journalists. It is a monument to journalism, of sorts, in a way that helps one see how much we would not know if not for the scribes and photographers who chronicled the action.
It turned out to be quite an emotional day for most. Maybe it was the surprise of seeing something one hadn’t expected to be there. Or maybe it was realizing how much time has passed since an historic moment was captured on film. Perhaps it was a sense of loss, of what cannot be replaced, of what happens when you must move on to the next event. Or a sense of unease with how much things have changed in the way news is delivered, a dizzying sense of losing one’s grasp of what is known as technology carries us along on a rip tide into a murky future fraught with unknowns.
The guided tour event at the Newseum was co-hosted by the Society of Professional Journalists DC Pro and Maryland Pro chapters; the Maryland, Delaware, D.C. Press Association; the Baltimore Association of Black Journalists; and Reporters Without Borders.
Our tour guide was Dave Ottalini, a former broadcast journalist at CNN and a former SPJ member. He had a very attentive audience, and a number of other visitors to the Newseum that day stopped to hear what he had to say on the fringes of our group. He said that once the Newseum closes to visitors at the end of 2019, it could take as long as a year to get all the items on display and in storage out of the building. Some of the exhibits actually belong to various entities that have them on loan, but much of the rest will go into warehouses. There are some exhibits that are traveling around the U.S. — to keep the Newseum “flag” out there, he said. And the Newseum will have an online presence for virtual tours.
