Culture

"NEWSEUM" Museum of News & Journalism Opens in Washington D.C.

by ACE PRESTON | May 12, 2008 at 12:27 pm

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"NEWSEUM" Museum of News & Journalism Opens in Washington D.C.

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A new museum based on News & Journalism has recently opened up in Washington D.C. to the general public as of April 11, 2008. Located at 555 Pennsylvania Avenue it's first location was in Rosslyn Virginia April 18, 1997.
The museum was designed by architect James Stewart Polshek who designed the Rose Center for Earth and Space with Todd Schliemann at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
The structure symbolizes a celebration of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution particularly freedom of the press and free speech however what makes this museum unique is that it holds the remains of photographers Larry Burrows/Life magazine, Henri Huet/Associated Press, Kent Potter/United Press International, and Keisaburo Shimamoto/Newsweek, who were killed when their South Vietnamese helicopter was shot down over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos on February 20, 1971.

In 1989 former AP Saigon photo chief Horst Faas and former Saigon bureau chief Richard Pyle visited the crash site in Laos. In 1996 the jungle crash was rediscovered but the remains were so scant it was ruled a circumstantial group identification.
It was photographer Sergio Ortiz who took the last photo of the four photographers who at many times were the last photographers to photograph many a soldier.
In an ironic twist of faith, Burrows and Huet were both winners of the Robert Capa award for photography requiring exceptional courage and enterprise named after a photographer whom himself died in nearby Thai Binh Vietnam 1954.
Larry Burrows in real life claimed to prefer taking photos in quiet museums. His remains and the three others were placed below the floor of the Journalist Memorial of the New Museum on April 3, 2008.