Visitors seeking the Newseum’s customary offering of front pages from newspapers across the United States this morning are being greeted by a wall of blacked-out images.
The museum has redacted its catalog of front pages for the day in order to honor journalists killed reporting the news and to raise awareness of threats to press freedom worldwide. In total, the Newseum is memorializing 14 journalists who died on the job in 2014, including James Foley, Michel du Cille, Anja Niedringhaus, Simone Camilli, Luke Somers and Steven Sotloff.
The redaction is accompanied by a social media campaign, #WithoutNews, that invites Newseum visitors to consider life without the press. Since the campaign went live this morning, several journalists have offered interpretations of what that world might look like.
A world #WithoutNews is unimaginable. News offers a glimpse of far off places & an insight into the human condition closer to home @Newseum.
— Jacob White (@JacobMWhite) June 8, 2015
#WithoutNews our society would be uninformed. And an uninformed society is a dangerous society. @Newseum
— Jauné Jackson (@JauneJackson) June 8, 2015
News is important to me because, well, it's who I am. I'd be lost if I didn't have it. #WithoutNews
— Sean Smyth (@smythsays) June 8, 2015
A world #WithoutNews would also leave us without knowledge, insight, and an understanding of how we are cogs in a greater machine @Newseum
— Kamahl Santamaria (@KamahlAJE) June 8, 2015
The Newseum will resume posting front pages Tuesday according to its usual schedule. The uncensored versions of today’s front pages will be archived on June 9.
