The Newseum is that museum in a town of museums that no one goes to. Because it’s a museum about America’s least favorite profession… the media.
The Newseum owners can no longer afford to subsidize the place, they say, and are exploring plans to sell all or part of the building.
If the Newseum goes down, it will have deserved its death. Truth be told, it never deserved birth. Its owner, the Freedom Forum foundation, spent $450 million building its palace of journalism in 2008, making the Newseum among the most expensive museums then under construction…
At $24.95 a ticket, the Newseum can’t attract enough paying customers to continue.
And that’s in a city filled with great, free museums. But somebody at the Newseum finally figured out how to make money. Sell, “You Are Very Fake News” shirts. But the media, in the words of the media, was not amused. And now the Newseum is apologizing for finally giving the people what they want.
The Newseum has removed the “You Are Very Fake News” t-shirts from the gift shop and online. We made a mistake and we apologize. A free press is an essential part of our democracy and journalists are not the enemy of the people.
A free press is. The media is a monopoly controlled by a handful of corporations while reflecting one polar viewpoint. And while making up fake news to promote that viewpoint.
Banning fake news shirts won’t make the media any less fake.
This t-shirt doesn’t belong anywhere. It particularly doesn’t belong at the @Newseum, a place that celebrates journalism and has the First Amendment etched in stone outside its building,” Matt Viser, the Boston Globe’s deputy Washington bureau chief, wrote on Twitter about the “fake news” shirt.
“Anywhere”.
The media remains the greatest threat to the First Amendment.
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