April 11 (Bloomberg) -- When the Newseum was last open to the public in 2002, a prominent feature was Walter Cronkite's hulking TV camera. Today, when the journalism museum reopens in Washington, a spotlight will be on Jamal Albarghouti's phone.

Albarghouti used his mobile phone's camera to record video during last year's massacre at Virginia Tech University. The graduate student e-mailed his footage to CNN, bringing the news to the nation before the networks got anywhere near the scene.

That shift sums up a new mission of the interactive Newseum, which at $450 million is among the most expensive museums ever built: to reflect the revolution in the media, where citizen reporters, bloggers and Web sites have overtaken an industry once dominated by a few centralized news sources.

``We are about things that happen right away,'' said Joe Urschel, executive director of the museum, which is on Pennsylvania Avenue just blocks from the U.S. Capitol.

So determined is the museum to give the news a forward spin that even the building's architecture reflects the Internet: The front resembles an oversize computer, and the windows were designed to evoke the visual activity of ``a Web site screen,'' said architect James Polshek.

Homages to historical news coverage -- like Cronkite's camera, video of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 ``I Have a Dream'' speech, and Orson Welles's 1938 ``War of the Worlds'' radio broadcast -- which dominated the old Newseum in Rosslyn, Virginia, are still there.

Back Gallery

Yet, to reach the massive archive of historical news broadsheets, visitors must ride to the fifth floor, then take stairs to a back gallery. And one of the largest collections of Berlin Wall segments on display outside Germany is tucked away next to the food court at the bottom level.

Instead of focusing on the past, Newseum visitors ``will get more involved in what's happening now,'' said Felix Gutierrez, a Newseum consultant and journalism professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.

Inside the 90-foot atrium, the museum's layout showcases new technology, including a 40-by-20-foot video screen. Exhibits were designed so they can be replaced overnight to address major news events.

Internet

In the Internet, TV and Radio gallery, short documentaries herald the rise of citizen journalists and bloggers and spotlight newspaper editors as they shift their focus to Web content. One short film notes the popularity of independent Web sites, such as the news and gossip clearinghouse operated by Matt Drudge.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at a ceremony for the facility's grand opening today, noted the speed at which news spreads using the latest technology.

``Communication travels in real time,'' she said. ``In fact, I find in my meetings -- and perhaps some of you do -- that it has traveled even before we've left the meeting: the BlackBerrys at work.''

At 250,000 square feet, the new facility is about four times the size of the former Newseum and cost nine times more to construct. Both facilities were funded mainly by a foundation established by USA Today founder Al Neuharth.

The new museum opens amid the newspaper industry's worst slump in at least 57 years. Print advertising sales fell 9.4 percent last year, the most since an industry group began keeping records in 1950.

Declining Membership

Blocks away from the Newseum, at the National Press Club, membership has fallen during the past few decades to about 3,700 from 4,500 as traditional reporting jobs have disappeared.

At the same time, Web-based journalism has grown. Advertising on Web sites gained 19 percent in 2007 according to the New York-based market researcher Nielsen Co.

``The media is growing,'' said Gutierrez of the Annenberg School, ``and it's growing in a new direction.''

Bloomberg News is among the founding partners and a sponsor of the Newseum.

The Newseum is at Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, N.W. Washington. Information: +1-888-639-7386; http://www.newseum.org.

To contact the reporter on this story: Karen Leigh in Washington at kleigh@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 11, 2008 18:19 EDT