Washington — The press is known as the "Fourth Estate." So what are the other three estates?

The answer to this and a zillion or so other questions about the news industry, its culture and its history can be found inside a giant new glass-and-steel structure on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House. The front is dominated by a 74-foot-high, 50-ton marble tablet inscribed with the First Amendment.

Rick McKay / COX (ENLARGE)

The car in which Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles was killed in 1976 when a bomb was detonated fills a gallery at the Newseum.

Rick McKay / COX (ENLARGE)

At the Newseum's 'Be a Reporter' stations, visitors can pick up a microphone, step before a camera and experience what it's like to be a television journalist.

Rick McKay / COX (ENLARGE)

A huge video screen showcasing past world events hangs in the 90-foot-high atrium of the new and improved Newseum.

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This Newseum, the "world's most interactive museum," is scheduled to open April 11.

The Newseum cost $450 million and spreads across seven levels and 250,000 square feet of exhibit space; it houses 15 theaters, including one where audiences experience "4-D time-travel." The Newseum is nonprofit and privately financed.

The museum replaces the old Newseum, which opened in 1997, cost $50 million to build and was across the Potomac River in Arlington, Va.

"We ran out of room at the old Newseum," explained Charles Overby, a former editor of Gannett newspapers in Florida, Tennessee and Mississippi and the CEO of the Newseum. The original Newseum was attracting about a half-million visitors a year, needed to expand and couldn't find room nearby.

"Our mission is to educate as many people as possible about the First Amendment," he said. "We decided to move to fish where the fish are" in an ideal location, in sight of the Capitol and Supreme Court.

The old Newseum was free, but the new one is not. Opening day will be free but afterward admission will be $20 for adults, $18 for ages 65 and older, $13 for ages 7-12, and free for children younger than 7 (group discounts available). Tickets can be purchased online at newseum.org and in person at the Newseum admission desk.

The Newseum took six years to plan, design and build, funded largely through a grant from the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation that describes itself as "dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people."

Oh, the other three estates? The clergy, nobility and commoners — the three estates historically summoned to advise royal rulers. Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke later used the term Fourth Estate to describe the journalists sitting in the press gallery of the British House of Commons and declared them "more important than them all."

Every Newseum gallery has been designed to appeal to "skimmers, swimmers and divers," said Overby. "Skimmers" stroll through and catch the highlights as they pass. A "swimmer" will stop and read about some exhibit and engage in some interactive activity in gaining an overview. A "diver" wants to know a great deal about one exhibit.

"I've heard [the terms] used in connection with newspapers," Overby said. "If you want to spend two hours there, you can do that. If you want to spend two days, you can do that, too."

Print newspapers and network television evening newscasts are going through hard times with audiences shrinking for both, but Overby said he remains "optimistic about the public's desire to get news." The questions arise about what platforms will provide the delivery, and the changing technologies such as the Internet are examined in the Newseum, he said.

"It's not a shrine to the press. It shows the press — warts and all," Overby said.

Eleven major news organizations — including Cox Enterprises Inc., owner of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other newspapers, radio and television stations — contributed a combined $79 million to the Newseum. These media contributors also include The New York Times, News Corp., Hearst Corp., ABC News, NBC News and Time Warner. In recognition of their contributions, galleries bear their names.

Visitors entering The New York Times/Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News will find themselves in a soaring, 90-foot-tall atrium with a 40-by-22-foot high-definition media screen where breaking news will be shown.

The Cox Enterprises First Amendment Gallery uses interactive exhibits and artifacts to explain the relevance of the five freedoms — religion, speech, press, assembly and petition — guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The News Corp. News History Gallery is the largest in the Newseum and traces centuries of news gathering and dissemination, with artifacts ranging from a 3,362-year-old cuneiform brick from Sumeria to the breached door at the Watergate break-in that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. This evolution of news is told in five theaters and through a collection of more than 30,000 newspapers going back 500 years.

Visitors will also be able to see daily print front pages from 80 newspapers in an area adjacent to a terrace that provides one of the few views where the Supreme Court can be seen behind the Capitol dome. That day's front pages of more than 500 newspapers from around the world can be seen on a digital display.

Newseum officials said the Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery contains "the largest and most comprehensive collection of Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalism ever assembled." The gallery also features a documentary film in which news photographers explain their craft.

Curators may have stretched to connect some of the most impressive exhibits to the news culture. The Newseum features one of the biggest portions of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany and an ominous guard tower, for instance. The gallery talks about RIAS, Radio in the American Sector, which broadcast news into East Berlin and examines the role of the news media in the 30-year history of the wall.

Also on display is the radio tower that stood atop the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists flew a jetliner into the structure. A wall in this 9/11 Gallery displays newspaper front pages from Sept. 12 that told of the attacks on the twin towers and Pentagon and the crash of a plane seized by terrorists into a Pennsylvania field. Journalists give accounts of how they covered these events and their reactions to them in a Newseum documentary film.

The "4-D" experience at the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Theater combines a digital 3-D film with a "4th D" of special effects, including motion and air gusts. At the "Be a TV Reporter" venue, visitors can do a stand-up television interview and have the results posted online and ready to be zipped to YouTube.

Asked what is his favorite exhibit, Overby said it changes almost daily. Right now it's a high-tech world map that shows at a glance the status of press freedom in different countries.

"Most of the world does not have a free press," he said. The map "demonstrates how fragile a free press is worldwide."

IF YOU GO

Getting there

Expect to pay about $210 round trip airfare from Atlanta to Washington.

About the Newseum

The Newseum is at Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, beside the Canadian Embassy. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. Admission: Adults, $20; ages 65 and older, $18; ages 7-12, $13; under age 7 (discounts for groups), free. Tickets can be purchased online at newseum.org, by phone at 1-888-639-7386 or in person at the Newseum admissions desk. Same-day tickets are available.

There is a self-service food court called the Food Section and a restaurant called the Source. Menus for both were developed by California chef Wolfgang Puck. Four shops sell media-related souvenirs and other items.

The Newseum is within walking distance of the Archives-Navy Memorial Metro Station on the green and yellow lines; Judiciary Square Metro Station on the red line; Smithsonian Metro Station on the orange and blue lines; and Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro Station on the green, red or yellow lines. There is no on-site parking, but parking garages are nearby.