Washington, D.C., is home to more than 40 museums. But when one more museum opened in the nation's capital earlier this year, it was still pretty big news.

After all, the $450 million Newseum is all about the news.

The Newseum actually first opened in 1997, in an off-the-beaten-path site in Arlington, Va. When millions of visitors a year showed up, plans were made to move the museum to a better location.

Better indeed.

The new site is midway between the White House and the U.S. Capitol on Pennsylvania Avenue; a sixth-floor balcony boasts one of the city's best views of the Capitol dome.

The purpose of the museum is to show journalism's role, record its contribution to our society and build an understanding of the profession. What becomes clear from the museum's exhibits, though, is that the real stars are not journalists, but the people and the history they cover.

It's a museum about the things that affect our lives and shape how we feel about life. It's the still-raw shock and grief we feel as we relive the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Visitors are transported back to that emotionally wrenching day via a display of photos taken by a freelance journalist whose cameras were found days after he died in the collapse of the twin towers; through a twisted section of the television antenna that once topped the World Trade Center's north tower, set amid a backdrop of newspapers' front pages reporting the tragedy; and a video of journalists sharing how it felt to try to get the news out while coming to grips with the human side of knowing thousands had just died in their midst.

The museum records the contributions of journalism, to be sure: A 32-foot section of the Berlin Wall, along with a 40-foot East German watchtower, revel in the influence Western media had in forcing the wall to fall.

But the Newseum primarily celebrates the freedoms that allow journalists to have an impact. The First Amendment (which guarantees freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, petition and the press) is carved into a 74-foot marble wall on the exterior of the building. Also outside is a display of 80 newspapers' front pages from around the world, updated daily.

Inside is a mile and a half of displays spread over seven floors. Among the highlights:

• A theme-park-like movie that presents a trio of news events via a 3-D movie and special effects.

• A 3,200-year-old specimen of reporting: a clay brick with cuneiform writing that recounts the building of a chapel in the temple of a Sumerian king.

• A gallery of Pulitzer Prize-winning photos along with a documentary in which photographers tell the stories behind their famous images.

• A gallery of electronic news, featuring everything from Franklin R. Roosevelt's famous 1933 inaugural address to the cell phone used by a Virginia Tech student to report to the world via CNN on the 2007 campus massacre.

• The car in which Arizona investigative reporter Don Bolles died in a bomb blast planted by the Mob.

• A memorial wall honoring the more than 1,800 journalists killed in pursuit of their profession since 1837. (More journalists have died covering the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq - 143 - than died covering the Crimean War, Civil War, both world wars and the Vietnam War combined).

• An "interactive newsroom," with exhibits that let visitors try their hand at being a TV reporter, a print reporter or a photographer. There's also a news trivia game and a chance to test how you would handle journalism ethics questions.

• Bathroom tiles have a quirky touch, displaying some bloopers that have appeared in newspapers.

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Getting there

Where: 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C.

Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day

Cost: $20 (ages 13-64); $18 (seniors);

$13 (ages 7 to 12); free (ages 6 and younger)

Phone: (888) 639-7386

Web site: www.newseum.org