This fall, students in Professor David Alm’s Magazine Writing class visited The New York Times museum, where Stella Raine Chu, a former Hunter student and now a news assistant at the Times, and David Dunlap, a former Times reporter and now the curator of the museum, welcomed the group for a tour.
Students lined up quietly in the lobby, where a security guard asked for IDs one by one, much like TSA agents at the airport. After the verification, they moved forward to the elevators and ascended 15 floors to a jewel-box of a room filled with historical artifacts.
The class entered the museum through a glass door covered in press passes, proof of the many corners of the world from which Times’s journalists have reported.
Inside, a soft light fell over the untouchable objects from the newspaper’s 174-year history, revealing how this celebrated newspaper evolved. Its objects honor both achievements and mistakes in its history.
Some of the museum’s artifacts include the desk of the newspaper’s founder, Henry Jarvis Raymond, a Pulitzer Prize for war coverage, and front pages from key historical moments, including the unused Nov. 8, 2016, cover the Times had prepared anticipating that Hillary Clinton would win that year’s presidential election.
Sophia Green, a magazine class student, said the experience was inspiring. “Seeing all the crucial moments in history and how the journalists were active members in those high-intensity environments just reiterates the need and urge for the free press and our duty as journalists to be the voice for the people and to the people,” Green said.
The artifacts in the New York Times museum provided journalism students with a glimpse into the evolution of journalism. Presenting both celebrated achievements and missteps, the collection highlights the values of resilience, accountability, and looking for the truth that continue to define the profession.
After an hour, Chu and Dunlap thanked the class for coming and saw them back to the bank of elevators. They had their own stories to report, stories that—like those the Times has built its reputation on over the past 174 years—might otherwise never be told.
