Knight Foundation Gives $25 Million to Newseum

Gift Is Biggest From a Media Organization

The Knight Foundation is giving $25 million to the Newseum, the mammoth facility dedicated to the history of news that opens on Pennsylvania Avenue next month.

The gift, the largest single donation from a news institution to the museum, will be commemorated with the naming of two broadcast studios and a conference center for John S. and James L. Knight, the brothers who founded Knight Newspapers. The chain later merged to become Knight Ridder, which was sold in 2006.

"We really believe this is the great platform for a conversation among Americans about free speech and a free press," said Alberto Ibarguen, the foundation president and former publisher of the Miami Herald.

The foundation appointed a special committee to study the Newseum as it developed because Ibarguen is both the foundation's leader and chairman of the Newseum board.

"They came to the conclusion that this is where you could influence generations of Americans, intimately and personally, on the interpretation of free speech issues," Ibarguen said. "The museum makes what otherwise could be a scolding lecture one that is fun, accessible and easy for any adult or kid to figure out what free speech means to them."

The museum is to open April 11. Facing Pennsylvania Avenue, it has an 74-foot-high marble tablet engraved with the First Amendment. Behind the glass portion of the facade is an enormous screen that will give passersby a look at the day's latest news.

The Newseum's 250,000 square feet will exhibit newspapers, films, newsreels, photographs and television screens that cover the making and delivery of the news back 500 years. It is packed with interactive games and screens that not only put the visitor in the action of a story, but give them a chance to answer questions about the ethics of journalism. "We wanted to be part of that conversation," Ibarguen said.

The Newseum cost $450 million and a number of news organizations have contributed more than $50 million for the project. The Annenberg Foundation gave a separate gift of $15 million last October.

Charles L. Overby, chief executive officer of the Newseum, said of the Knight gift, "This is going to make a huge difference in our long-term" ability to focus on issues facing the media.