At the Newseum

After the Building Museum I headed over the Newseum. An interesting exhibit on the 1960s. There was also an interesting exhibit on the American Revolution.

Jimi Hendrix's suit

A Demonstration by the Newseum

It seemed very appropriate to have a demonstration go right past the Newseum. I think this was for rights for the disabled.

Ann Hornaday Talking Oscars at the Newseum

Another wonderful Oscar program at the Newseum with Ann Hornaday of the Post. This is my fifth year going. It is always interesting to listen to her insights on movies. And her predictions of who will win the major awards.

This year there was talk about the lack of diversity in the nominees. She said that's due in part who makes up the members of the academy. Older and of course much more white the general public.

Hornaday wrote about it the Post:

The fact is that the kind of crossover filmgoing that African Americans have had to engage in for practically a century represents a existential bridge too far for white filmgoers who are accustomed to being the cultural standard (and who have the luxury of tuning out on the rare occasion when they’re not). At the Oscars, this assumption has taken a subtle form of condescension in the name of “diversity” that perpetuates black protagonists as the often subservient “other” and not the norm. With a few very welcome exceptions, when the Academy has recognized an African American film or performance, it’s been for a project that was explicitly about racism and race relations and usually a historical period piece, rather than a present-day thriller, love story or drama that happened to feature mostly black people.

Hornaday taking a bow as she enters the talk.

She adds in the article and expanded on this in her talk:

Just as culturally fluent filmmakers know that blinkered homogeneity is commercial and artistic death, culturally literate viewers don’t need to see someone who looks exactly like them on screen in order to relate, escape, identify or simply be entertained. Filmgoers who see crossing over as a bridge too far aren’t just depriving themselves of the riches to be discovered on the other side. They risk being left behind when the entire structure comes crashing down.

 During the Q&A, I asked if she thought going to up to ten nominees for best picture was worked. My point was the reason behind this was this move was touted by the Academy as a way for small films to get nominated along with blockbusters too. I said it doesn't seem to have worked that way. She agreed with me up to this year. When she pointed out that several of the best picture nominees had done very well at the box office. She thought maybe this year will start changing that.

On another topic, she was asked about Star Wars by the moderator. She said she really liked it. The film didn't take many risks. But she added it brought the franchise back to were it was originally. SHe like the new characters even BB8 which she thought was cute. She thought the next film was the one where things would start taking off.

In all a fun afternoon at the Newseum.

A Great Talk at the Newseum

A great panel discussion at the Newseum on Saturday about sports journalism:

Sports media criticism has become an industry – and some may say, a sport –unto itself, attracting millions daily to the online, broadcast and print discussions about how the games, people and business of sports are reported. Join in a discussion with some of the nation’s top sports media critics, and their critics, in program co-sponsored by the Newseum Institute and the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

Panelists:
Kevin Blackistone, ESPN, The Washington Post, and NPR
Christine Brennan, USA Today, ABC News, CNN, PBS NewsHour and NPR
Mark Hyman, author, sports journalist and George Washington University professor in sports law and sports media
Dan Steinberg, author, “DC Sports Bog” for The Washington Post
James Brady, new ESPN public editor, digital journalist and former sports and executive editor at WashingtonPost.com
Christy Winters Scott, host and analyst for Comcast SportsNet

Moderators:
George Solomon, director of the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at the Phllip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland; former assistant managing editor for sports, The Washington Post; and former ESPN Ombudsman
Gene Policinski, Chief Operating Officer, Newseum Institute; and former Managing Editor/Sports, USA Today

Catching Up — Kind of

 The view from the balcony at the Newseum.

I've fallen behind again. I wanted to leave the post about the 50th anniversary of the Peanuts special for a couple of days. Then the horrible events happened in California. I also got an unpleasant blast from the past which I've been dealing with over the past couple of days. It involves the U.S. Department of Justice. More on that later.

I did go to the Newseum this weekend to hear a panel discussion on sports journalism.

More on all of that in the next couple of days.

The Last Pictures from Nationals at 10: Baseball Makes News

A few more pictures from the Nationals at 10: Baseball Makes News exhibit.

From the Post on the exhibit:

Over the span of 10 years, the Washington Nationals have gone from being a struggling team with such players as Brad Wilkerson and Livan Hernandez taking the field at the decrepit RFK Stadium to preseason World Series favorites led by Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer. The key moments of the team’s remarkable transformation are explored in “Nationals at 10: Baseball Makes News,” a small exhibit of 10 artifacts and pieces of baseball history opening Friday on the second floor of the Newseum.

The show, arranged chronologically, is a whistle-stop tour of the Nationals’ greatest moments, and it plays out just like the game footage that screens on a loop above the display. There are lineup cards from the first Nationals game, in Philadelphia (Terrmel who?), and from the last game at RFK Stadium; the jacket and jersey President Obama wore while throwing out the first pitch at Nationals Park; items related to the mega-hyped debuts of Harper and Stephen Strasburg; a champagne bottle popped in the locker room after the team clinched the 2012 NL East title; and the home plate from Jordan Zimmermann’s no-hitter on the final day of the 2014 season.

Baseball purists may roll their eyes at the inclusion of the Presidents Race — images of the racing presidents (minus newcomer Calvin Coolidge) are projected on the floor, and a glass case holds the golden sneakers Teddy Roosevelt wore when he finally won his first race in October 2012.

That nod to Teddy seems to sum up the feel-good vibe of the exhibit. You might think the Nationals have always been perennial postseason favorites. Those difficult early years, with six seasons under the .500 mark, are mostly glossed over. There’s nothing about how relentless preseason hype from Sports Illustrated and other prognosticators winds up crushing fans’ dreams by the time fall rolls around, and although you’ll see the jersey Jayson Werth was wearing when he crushed that homer in Game 4 of the 2012 National League Division Series, there’s no trace of the glove Drew Storen used when the Cardinals scored four runs in the top of the ninth in the following game.

More from Nationals at 10: Baseball Makes News

Another of the icon moments that are captured in the exhibit is of course Jayson Werth's home run in the bottom of the 9th to force a fifth game in the 2012 playoff series against St. Louis.

Here's a little from a story from ESPN about that home run:

WASHINGTON -- It was an hour after the at-bat of a lifetime, and Jayson Werth still wasn't sure what just happened.

An hour after his epic 13-pitch mano a mano with Cardinals bullpen hulkster Lance Lynn.

An hour after a wave of the bat he'd dreamed about all his life.

An hour after he'd sent a baseball soaring through the pulsating D.C. night -- and into a whole new chapter of Washington baseball folklore.

An hour after as euphoric a trip around the bases as any man has ever made in his town.

And yet, more than anything, you know what Jayson Werth needed to complete his classic journey? A video machine. What else? Had to find the nearest video machine -- because whatever had just gone down in the turbocharged ballpark he plays in, it had all zipped by him way too fast for one mere human to comprehend.

"Really, I need to go back and watch the whole thing, watch the whole at-bat, and see exactly what went on," Werth was saying, an hour after the game-ending, season-saving, we'll-see-you-tomorrow-night home run that made the giant right-field scoreboard flash the biggest news in Washington on a memorable Thursday evening: Nationals 2, Cardinals 1. "I don't even remember it. It's almost like I blacked out. It was like a Will Ferrell moment."

This is a little teaser from the video that they have on the Nationals. It's pretty good.

Nationals at 10: Baseball Makes News

There's a great exhibit at the Newseum about the Washington Nationals.

This from the Newseum about it:

In partnership with the Washington Nationals, the Newseum presents “Nationals at 10: Baseball Makes News,” a new exhibit spotlighting 10 memorable media moments of the Nationals’ first decade in the nation’s capital.

“Nationals at 10” will bring back memories of some of the most unforgettable moments in Nationals history, with artifacts including the bat and ball from Ryan Zimmerman’s walk-off home run in the inaugural game at Nationals Park in 2008, the pitching rubber and rosin bag used by Stephen Strasburg during his record-breaking 14-strikeout major league debut in 2010, the jersey worn by 19-year-old Bryce Harper in 2012 in his first major league game and the home plate used during Jordan Zimmermann’s no-hitter in the last game of the 2014 regular season.

The exhibit explores how the press covers the team’s newsworthy events on and off the field, from Barack Obama’s first pitch of the 2010 season to presidential mascot Teddy Roosevelt’s long-awaited victory in the popular Presidents’ Race at Nationals Park.

“Nationals at 10” will be on display through Nov. 29, 2015.

I went this past weekend and here are a few pictures from it. Needless to say they'll be a couple more posts about this.

At the Newseum

One of the more amusing things as the Newseum is a series of headlines to news stories that just aren't exactly right.  The added fun of all of these headlines is that they are titles in the bathroom walls.

So if you are going to be taking pictures of them you have to make sure the bathroom is empty.

One added note of irony, the headline about the solar system is from a paper located next to the town I grew up in. Small world.

An Evening at the Newseum — MacNeil/Lehrer on the Kennedy Assassination

I got there around 6 to see the exhibit 3 days which chronicles the events of those fateful 3 days. They have the actual camera that Zapruder used to film the presidential motorcade. There was a video that showed a time line of the afternoon by showing what was on TV. What shows were interrupted and the slow roll of out of information on the assassination. Probably the most famous moment was Walter Cronkite’s famous announcement that the president was dead.

Then it was on to hear the recollections of Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer on that day in Dallas. Lehrer worked for the afternoon paper in Dallas and had been assigned to cover the presidential arrival and departure at Love Field. MacNeil was with NBC and traveling with the president.

They both talked about the nasty incidents that had taken place in Dallas. Adlai Stevenson being hit in the head with a sign and Lady Bird Johnson being spit on. Both said that the Dallas police were afraid there would be some sort of incident like that when the president was there. Of course the thought of assassination wasn’t in anyone’s mind at the time.

MacNeil detailed how he was in the first seat of the press bus behind the motorcade. He was looking at the president’s speech that was going to be given that day. MacNeil was trying to decide the best quote to use in his story. When he heard what he thought was a back fire. But then there were two more sounds which he recognized as shots. He got let off the bus and started frantically to look for a telephone. He ran into the school book depository. He asked a man coming out of the building where there was a phone. The guy pointed to someone else and said ask him. In all likelihood the man MacNeil asked was Lee Harvey Oswald. MacNeil said it really didn’t good look at the guy because his focus was on finding a phone.

Lehrer detailed how he covered the arrival of the president and then had lunch. A waitress came in and screamed that the president had been shot. Lehrer was told to head over to Parkland Hospital and find out what was going on.

They then talked about how this event changed how America looked at things and the security around the president. They both said there really wasn’t any security to speak of. The motorcade route had been published in the newspaper which is of course something that wouldn’t happen today. Lehrer said that a secret service agent on the advance had gotten clearance to have the route published. The idea was to have as many people along the route as possible.

In any discussion about the Kennedy assassination, there was talk about a conspiracy to kill the president. Both men thought Oswald acted alone. Lehrer his paper handed him the lead on the story and he tracked down ever story possible. But he personally thought Oswald acted alone and was simply crazy.

Toward the end Judy Woodwruff brought up the event that brought the two of then together 10 years after the assassination and that was the Watergate Hearings. There was some discussion about that and then questions from the audience.

A very interesting and informative evening.

Pictures from the Kennedy Exhibit

Early edition of the Baltimore Evening Sun

The flash report from UPI about shots being fired

Zapruder's Camera

Johnson being sworn in.

Arriving at Love Field