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November 19, 2009
Inside Tim Russert's Office
Family, faith, sports, politics and journalism were important themes in Tim Russert's life, and they are reflected in the objects in his office.
Some of the stories behind the objects are contained in a flipbook at the exhibit.
"Inside Tim Russert's Office: If It's Sunday, It's 'Meet the Press'"
November 18, 2009
Al Roker (Richard Drew/Courtesy The Associated Press)
Live at the Newseum: Al Roker
"Today" show weatherman and feature reporter Al Roker will broadcast live at the Newseum Nov. 19.
Roker will begin broadcasting at 6 a.m. for The Weather Channel, where he co-hosts the morning show "Wake Up with Al," and for "Today" starting at 7 a.m.
The NBC News Interactive Newsroom will be the scene for Roker's weather segment. The gallery features the popular interactive "Be a TV Reporter," where visitors choose from a variety of backdrops, including a weather map, to read their reports.
Roker's broadcast also will feature the new exhibit "Inside Tim Russert's Office: If It's Sunday, It's Meet the Press," which opens to the public Nov. 20.
The exhibit recreates Russert's office much as it looked the day he died suddenly in 2008. Russert was the longtime moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press."
Related Links:
• Inside Tim Russert's Office
• Be a TV Reporter
• NBC News Interactive Newsroom
November 5, 2008
Today's Front Pages Analysis
America Votes for Change
By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor, Wednesday November 5, 2008
Some pols and pundits predicted a landslide, but the headlines on the world’s front pages reflected the themes, slogans and ubiquitous logo of President-elect Barack Obama’s historic presidential campaign.
- • "Yes We Can." (The Record of Stockton, Calif.)
- • "Change Comes to America." (Canada’s The Hamilton Spectator)
- • "Change of Course." (Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald)
- • "Face of Change." (Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald)
- • "A New Hope." (Iowa City Press-Citizen)
Many newspapers — particularly in the South — chose poignant civil rights themes to describe Obama’s unprecedented feat.
- • "In Our Lifetime," declared The Anniston (Ala.) Star.
- • "Obama Overcomes," said The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News.
- • "Race is History," The Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise offered.
- • "Obama Reaches The Mountaintop," said The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.
But for the majority of newspapers, the president-elect’s last name and new title were enough to tell the story.
- • "Obama!" (The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa.)
- • "Oh-Bama! (The Orange County (Calif.) Register
- • "Mr. President." (The Chicago Sun-Times)
- • "It’s Obama." (La Tribune of Paris, France)
Finally, for every victory, there is a defeat. The Arizona Republic summed up Sen. John McCain’s poignant concession speech. "Arizonan McCain gracious in defeat; calls for unity," the paper said.
Video: Change Has Come
Slideshow: History Lesson
Front Pages Archive: Obama Makes History, Nov. 5, 2008
November 17, 2009
Chef Robert Irvine and his team plan their "Dinner: Impossible" menu. (Maria Bryk/Newseum)
Newseum Featured on Food Network
The season finale of "Dinner: Impossible," the popular cable program where host and chef Robert Irvine overcomes culinary obstacles and prepares a meal on deadline, will air on the Food Network Nov. 18 at 10 p.m. EDT and PDT. The show was taped at the Newseum in September.
Irvine prepared a variety of dishes for 300 diners based on four major food events in U.S. history: Thanksgiving, World War I food shortages, the invention of TV dinners and the publication of chef Julia Child’s best-selling "Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Irvine was assisted by Newseum staffers Emily Nicholson and Lawton Samuels, and David Spychalski, executive chef for Wolfgang Puck Catering. Also featured: "Meet the Press" moderator David Gregory, "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos, Fox News's Greta Van Susteren and Newseum president Ken Paulson.
The program will air again on Nov. 19 and Dec. 5.
For more information, visit www.foodnetwork.com.
November 3, 2009
© Alexandra Avakian/Contact Press Images
20 Years Ago: The Wall Comes Tumbling Down
By Sharon Shahid, senior Web editor
It snaked through Berlin like a concrete python, the only barrier in history built to keep a nation's people locked inside.
For 28 years since 1961, the Berlin Wall — die Mauer — stood as a testament to the eternal struggle between open and closed societies. It was built because more than 3 million people fled communist East Germany after World War II. More than 200 East Germans died trying to cross it.
For all its might, the wall could not stop the flow of news into East Berlin from West German radio and television. In 1946, the United States launched Radio in the American Sector (RIAS), a popular radio station operated by Germans in West Berlin. People in East Berlin could receive the RIAS broadcasts, which became an important source of fact-based reports and fueled the quest for freedom.
The wall became a symbolic backdrop for dramatic statements by Western leaders — from President John F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a Berliner)," to President Ronald Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
In 1989, the Berlin Wall did come down, spurred on by the deep human yearning for freedom that had toppled communist regimes across Eastern Europe. On the night of Nov. 9, just as abruptly as they had built the wall in the early morning darkness of Aug. 13, 1961, East German authorities opened the border — and the door to the fall of tyranny.
Crowds flowed through the wall near the Brandenburg Gate. Champagne flowed, too. Easterners crowded onto the Kurfürstendamm, Berlin's main shopping and dining street.
Jubilant Germans literally chipped away at one of the world's largest symbols of oppression. Within a week, the Berlin Wall and the German Democratic Republic had crumbled.
The Newseum's Berlin Wall Gallery features one of the largest public displays of Berlin Wall sections outside of Germany. Each of the eight wall sections is approximately four feet wide and 12 feet tall, and weighs three tons. The 40-foot-tall watchtower that stood less than a mile from "Checkpoint Charlie," the best-known crossing between East and West Berlin, is also part of the exhibit.
Photojournalist Alexandra Avakian was in Berlin on assignment for Life magazine the night the Berlin Wall fell. Her images of the historic event are featured on the Newseum's 40-foot-by-22-foot high-definition media screen, located in The New York Times–Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News. Additional information on Avakian and her work can be found at www.fotoweekdc.org.
Witness to History
By Gene Mater, Freedom Forum media consultant
In the darkness of August 12 and into the day of August 13, 1961, construction of the wall began. I was a journalist working in Europe at the time, so I flew to Berlin the following day to witness this newest example of humankind's inhumanity.
At first, the wall wasn't an actual wall but barbed wire and concrete blocks that closed off what once had been through-streets between East and West Berlin. It was now guarded by well-armed East German police.
Perhaps the cruelest example of what a totalitarian regime was willing to do to imprison its people was found in the Bernauerstrasse, where people stared in disbelief as apartments on the east side of the street became a true wall. Workmen with sledge hammers knocked out casement windows and bricked up gaping holes to prevent escapes and the sight of freedom on the other side of the street.
Despite all this, dramatic escapes continued: People crawled through secret tunnels from East to West; cars small enough to go under road barriers were utilized; people swam or used boats and rafts across the river and canals that made up the east-west border. Some managed to escape and hundreds were killed by East German guards.
The wall was successful in stopping people, but it could not block out news from the West, particularly from Radio in American Sector (RIAS), the most popular radio station in East and West Berlin. RIAS was started by the U.S. Army in February 1946, and its initials became its official name. The broadcast staff was German.
On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down as suddenly as it had gone up. Spontaneous celebrations took place on both sides of the wall to mark an otherwise peaceful revolution. I didn't make it to Berlin to take part in the celebration, but one of my sons who had grown up in Germany when I worked there, did. Less than a year later on October 3, 1990, Germany was officially unified as one nation once again.
Video blog: Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall
First Amendment Watch
Army to limit news-media access at Palin book-signing
By The Associated Press
Friday, November 20, 2009
RALEIGH, N.C. — The U.S. Army will allow the media limited coverage of Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg, but will bar reporters from interviewing her or her supporters on the post, officials said yesterday.
A Fort Bragg spokesman initially said the Army would ban the media from Palin's Nov. 23 book-signing, fearing it would turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama. After the Associated Press and The Fayetteville Observer protested, Col. Billy Buckner said the post would permit restricted access.
A small pool of reporters will be allowed to view and document the event at the North Post Exchange but will be barred from conducting interviews. The public will be allowed.
Buckner said the setup would allow reporters their right to access the event while preventing the appearance from turning political — something that officials believe would violate policy.
"If media are present, they can capture the imagery of what's going and sort of the ambiance of what's taking place," he said.
Fort Bragg, which is base for some 35,000 soldiers, does not hold many promotional events, especially not with political figures. Officials said they worried that media coverage would turn the appearance into a chance for people to express political opinions "directed against the commander in chief."
"The main reason is to stop this from turning into a political platform," said Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum. "There are Army regulations that basically prohibit military reservations from becoming political platforms by politicians."
AP Associate General Counsel Dave Tomlin called the proposed pools and restrictions on interviews "unlawful and unacceptable."
"If Army regulations forbid 'political events,' the Army should have considered that before allowing Palin to hold a public autograph session for a political book on the base," Tomlin said.
Palin has agreed not to give a speech, McCollum said. Palin will sign her new book, Going Rogue, for people and will not stop to pose for photographs, officials said.
A spokeswoman for the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and former Alaska governor didn't immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment and a spokeswoman for Palin's publisher, HarperCollins, did not immediately return a call for this story.
Palin began a promotional tour this week for her memoir, with plans to travel through several states that were key to the 2008 election, including North Carolina. She made several stops in the state while campaigning on the ticket of GOP presidential nominee John McCain.
McCollum said it wasn’t clear if military officials considered Palin a politician but noted that she had been critical of Obama while promoting the book. She said in an interview with ABC News that Obama should provide more troops to Afghanistan.
"It frustrates me and frightens me — and many Americans — that President Obama is dithering around with the decision in Afghanistan," she said.
Palin doesn't appear to be using her book-signings to promote her politics. She spoke briefly to supporters in Michigan on Nov. 18, saying it was great to be there and not mentioning Obama.
At least one person in the crowd yelled: "Palin power. 2012, yes."