Newseum Gets $15 Million Gift
posted 5:47 am Wed May 09, 2007 - WASHINGTON
"He was very interested in it going to a place where it would be publicly displayed in the right manner," said Newseum spokeswoman Susan Bennett. Other new pieces of the Newseum collection include the vest worn by ABC Newsman Bob Woodruff when he was badly injured in Iraq by a roadside bomb.
On Tuesday, the Newseum also announced its largest gift to help build the $435 million facility, scheduled to open Oct. 15. The Annenberg Foundation will donate $15 million, and in recognition of the gift, the Newseum will name its largest theater the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Theater.
In the past year, the Newseum has raised $79 million in gifts from 11 news organizations, foundations and families. Among the largest gifts were $10 million from both The New York Times Co. and News Corp., which owns Fox News Channel. Bennett said the Newseum had not set a firm fund-raising goal but wanted to draw as much support as possible.
"My husband, Walter, dedicated his life as a publisher, broadcaster, diplomat and philanthropist to communication, education and public service," Leonore Annenberg, president and chairwoman of the Annenberg Foundation, said in announcing the gift. She said the Newseum will teach visitors of all ages about "the importance of a free press in all societies."
The Annenberg Theater will present a 4-D movie experience with an 11-minute trip through history, featuring Edward R. Murrow as a central character.
"The experience will take visitors back in time as reporters provide first-hand accounts of the American revolution, desperation in a 19th century New York insane asylum and to London during the Blitz in World War II," Jack Hurley, the Newseum's senior vice president of broadcasting, said in an e-mail.
Audience members will wear 3-D glasses, similar to an Imax film. The fourth dimension will be misting water, rumbling seats and other "surprise special effects," Bennett said.
The original Newseum in Arlington, Va., was open to the public free of charge from 1997 to 2002. Officials at its parent organization, the Freedom Forum, decided to build a larger facility closer to the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall.
When it opens this fall, the new Newseum will be among the most expensive museums in Washington, charging $17.91 for adults (symbolic for the year the First Amendment was ratified), $16 for seniors and $13 for children ages 6 to 12. The 4-D theater will charge an admission fee of $5 beyond the museum admission price.
The Smithsonian museums and the National Gallery of Art offer free admission, while the International Spy Museum charges $16 and a new Madame Tussauds wax museum opening this fall is expected to charge about $20 or $25.
"We are a nonprofit organization," Bennett said. "We needed to generate some revenues to help offset the cost of running this new and much larger and improved Newseum."
The seven-level museum will feature interactive exhibits, 15 theaters, and two broadcast studios and a 74-foot tall marble engraving of the First Amendment.
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