Eight media companies and families have collectively poured $52 million into the Newseum, a Washington museum dedicated to freedom of speech and the press.
The donations from companies including The New York Times, Time Warner, the Hearst Corp. and News Corp., which owns the Fox News Channel, will help fund the $435 million project on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Representatives of the donors gathered Tuesday in the partially constructed 250,000-square-foot building.
“Without some missionary work in the 21st century, the First Amendment as we know it will not exist,” said Charles Overby, chairman and CEO of the Freedom Forum and Newseum.
The museum will sit near the U.S. Capitol and will feature multiple interactive exhibits and a 74-foot-high marble engraving of the First Amendment.
“Now more than ever, we love that that message is going to be facing toward the Capitol dome,” said Steve Capus, president of NBC News.
The original Newseum opened in 1997 on Wilson Boulevard in Arlington and closed in anticipation of the larger Washington facility, slated to open in late 2007.
Overby said $50 million more in donations from other companies and families could be coming in for the project, which is also funded by the Freedom Forum.
