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This Just In: Media

Blowing deadline without Al Neuharth

By Dan Kennedy

The NewsCapade with Al Neuharth has the same disjointed, context-free quality that marks Neuharth's signature creation, USA Today. (And why don't they call it the NewsCapade Without Al Neuharth? After all, he wasn't there.) The 2000-square-foot traveling collection of exhibits from the Freedom Forum's Newseum, in Arlington, Virginia, rolled to a stop in Charlestown, next to the USS Constitution, from Monday through Thursday of this week.

In a video titled Why Can't They Get It Right?, viewers were treated to an ultracompressed version of journalism's Stations of the Cross, from the Cincinnati Enquirer's theft of Chiquita's voice-mail calls to Bob Woodward talking about Janet Cooke, from Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle (yeah, them again) to mistakes made in covering the near-assassination of Ronald Reagan. In a movie called What's News?, a bass-heavy soundtrack accompanied images that flashed by at the speed of MTV, while Charles Osgood intoned, "War is news. Peace is news. Love is news. Hate is news." (Can Orwell's heirs sue for copyright infringement?) Against a wall, four screens displayed continuous coverage by CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS of the O.J. Bronco chase, Nelson Mandela's release from prison, the Oklahoma City bombing, the death of Princess Diana, and more.

For me, though, the most disconcerting experience -- to my utter chagrin -- was trying to put out a newspaper. In the interactive computer game Be an Editor, featuring real-life video and sound, the participant takes on the role of managing editor, on duty for his first day at the Daily Miracle. You're supposed to meet with four annoyingly perky section editors (news, sports, business, and lifestyle) and pick eight stories for that day's paper, four to run on the front page.

I poked around and chose a couple of stories that I hoped would annoy my new charges. ("No human-interest story?" implored Mr. Lifestyle.) But before I could finish, the virtual 5 p.m. deadline was upon me. And there, right in my face, was Dell Glassbrook, the editor-in-chief, who had so warmly welcomed me just a few minutes earlier.

"What are you waiting for?" he demanded. "Roll the presses, I want to put this paper to bed!" I tried to back up, but my only choices were to start over or return to the newsroom, where Glassbrook admonished me again. And again.

Great Caesar's ghost!