Kristin Deasy is an online assistant editor for USA TODAY and can be reached at kdeasy@usatoday.com.

THREE DAYS AFTER THE NEWSEUM opened to the public, editors and publishers from across the nation assembled to explore the seven-level, $450 million monument to the news.

The Freedom Forum-sponsored ASNE/NAA reception presented attending news leaders with five centuries of their industry’s work. Their reactions to the 250,000-square-foot building?

Anthony Moor, deputy managing editor/interactive at The Dallas Morning News, called the Newseum “a chronicle of the history of news, exhaustive and deeply interesting.”

But, he wrote in an e-mail, “I think the interactive wing needs help because things are changing all the time. Something as simple and silly as a whiteboard with the latest buzzwords in new media would be really cool. Maybe people could add their own."

It gives visitors “a much broader look at all of journalism,” said Scott Bosley, executive director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. The very scale of the building — for example, the 74-foot-high marble engraving of the First Amendment above the entrance — invites reflection, Bosley said.

"You’re in this big expanse, you pause, you think about what it really does mean. ... I think the space is used extremely well. It’s not just more space — it’s more of a sensory experience."

Hollis Towns, executive editor of The Cincinnati Enquirer, said he hoped the exhibits wouldn’t remain static because of the changing nature of the press. But he also said the museum had exceeded his expectations.

"The strength of the Newseum,” he said, “is putting all the pieces together. ... It is not about what you put in the museum — it’s about what the museum is seeking to highlight, or to celebrate. In this instance it’s our First Amendment rights."

The point of the museum is education, according to Bosley: “People who aren’t journalists have more of an opportunity to grasp [the importance of] the First Amendment, and journalists have more time to think about what they do and its impact on society."

The Newseum, located on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol, opened April 11 to a crowd of 10,000.*