A Chance to Get Story Behind the Stories

A traveling news museum landed in Griffith Park this week, bringing with it classic TV clips, historical newspapers, films and interactive exhibits that allow viewers to “walk in journalists’ shoes.”

The NewsCapade, a museum-on-wheels that will travel to all 50 states during the next two years, is open to visitors today and Saturday in the L.A. Zoo parking lot.

Earlier this week, Burbank resident John Matzke, 83, stood before replicas of old front pages and let the memories ripple back.

“There’s a lot of things I remember here,” said Matzke, who had been out for his daily 20-mile bike ride in the park. “I remember Lindbergh crossing the ocean.”

A wall of front pages scream out bold headlines, from the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Live broadcasts recall the Los Angeles riots and the Challenger explosion.

Touch-screen computer terminals ask visitors tough questions: What do you put on the front page? Which photographs are best? Would you report that a celebrity has AIDS? Or run a photo of a woman being electrocuted?

“The public does not have a good understanding of the news media,” said Jack Marsh, director of the NewsCapade and a journalist for 27 years. “The public holds journalists in low esteem. We’re here simply as a catalyst for bringing the public and the media together.”

The exhibits are a sampling of what is available at the Newseum, a 2-year-old facility in Arlington, Va. The NewsCapade and the Newseum are both projects of the Freedom Forum, a foundation dedicated to the preservation of free speech.

Local news stories in the NewsCapade, documented by a Los Angeles Times exhibit, recall the 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam, the 1932 Summer Olympics, the 1965 Watts riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

The free exhibit, co-sponsored by The Times, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Saturday.