In a physical sense the Newseum, one of Washington D.C.’s newest attractions, isn’t much of a “hidden” treasure.  The seven-story, 250,000-square-foot structure is prominently located on Pennsylvania Avenue just down from the U.S. Capitol Building, and its unique design makes it stand out from the buildings surrounding it.  What may be a little hidden, however, is the value of its content.

Last April, while in Washington to visit friends, I was excited to learn that my visit coincided with the Newseum’s grand opening.  My excitement was twofold:  First, being the grand opening, the hefty $20 entrance fee would be waived.  More importantly though was what I knew would be inside.  I had visited the Newseum seven years earlier in Rosslyn, Virginia, just across the river from Washington.  It closed its doors shortly afterwards and announced that it would reopen again in several years downtown.  For those of us who are lovers of news, it was a long wait.

The technical definition of news is bland.  One online dictionary defines it as “a report of a recent event; intelligence; information.”  For some of us, however, news has a relational component.  We learn what it happening to our global neighbors through news.  This act of paying attention pulls us away from our individual selves and introduces us to our corporate selves.  We discover that our lives are not just that which happens in the local mall, a particular subdivision, or particular country.  Not at all; our living is being done in a global, interconnected community.

“News” then is the story—at least in part—of what shapes our lives and the lives of those with whom we share space and time.  And so in wandering around the Newseum and viewing a section of the Berlin Wall, the shot-up car of a correspondent, or the radio antenna that once stood atop one of the Twin Towers in New York, one feels the reality of these events.  They are not just words on newsprint or images on a box in one’s living room; they are entirely tangible, with texture, shape, and weight, and they are in front of your face.

Newspaper front pages from around the world, updated daily, are displayed outside the Newseum

For me, however, the most poignant section of the Newseum is a relatively small room on the first floor.  Filled with Pulitzer Prize winning photographs which immediately silence those who enter, one gets the feeling of having stepped into something holy.  Voices hush as eyes struggle to absorb the myriad depictions of famine, love, violence, joy, and other components of reality.  Some images, such as one taken at an Olympic games, capture emotion so well that the viewer feels the event is happening even now.  Another then sends the heart falling as one contemplates an emaciated child lying prostrate and alone in the dirt, a patient vulture keeping watch nearby. The image only grows in power when in the caption you read that the photographer later committed suicide.

For the experienced traveler, two or three hours in the Newseum will churn up memories of places you've been in the past, reminding you of some of the deeper reasons to travel, and of the common humanity shared with others around the globe.  And for the struggling writer/photographer who has considered throwing it all to the wind so that he can pursue a more stable, financially sustainable job (yep, that’s me), the Newseum—particularly that holy room of photographs—whispers, “Not so fast.”

I was back in Washington for a short visit the month after the grand opening.  I wasn't ready to break with $20 to revisit the museum so soon...but I did buy a paper to read in one of my favorite coffee shops in the city.

For more about the Newseum, including today's front pages, visit its website at http://www.newseum.org.

Joel Carillet, chief editor of Wandering Educators, is a freelance writer and photographer based in Tennessee. He is the author of 30 Reasons to Travel: Photographs and Reflections from Southeast Asia. To learn more about him, or to follow his weekly photoblog, visit www.joelcarillet.com.