Freedom Forum’s Newseum Collection

History of Freedom Forum and Newseum

Freedom Forum was founded as a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) foundation in 1991 to foster First Amendment awareness. In April 1997, Freedom Forum launched the Newseum, a museum in Arlington, Virginia, dedicated to increasing public understanding of the importance of a free press and the First Amendment. The Newseum expanded to a new site in Washington, D.C., in April 2008, where it served more than 11 million visitors before it closed on Dec. 31, 2019.

In 2020, Freedom Forum established a vision of an America where everyone knows, values and defends the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition, with a mission to foster First Amendment freedoms for all. Today, Freedom Forum is one of the nation’s leading voices on the First Amendment and the five freedoms it protects.

Collection review

Since the Newseum’s closure in December 2019, Freedom Forum has served as the custodian of the Newseum’s collection. In early 2025, we began a careful and deliberate process to evaluate the entire collection to determine which artifacts help ensure the collection directly supports Freedom Forum’s mission and vision for the future. Based on that review, artifacts are either retained or deaccessioned (the process of removing materials from a collection). For those artifacts that will be deaccessioned, we are identifying other institutions that could preserve and return them to active public access through exhibits, research and study.

Review process

In 2025, Freedom Forum began implementing a thorough process with external experts that included a full inventory of the collection, an update of the organization’s Collections Management Policy and the creation of a Collections Development Plan (the plan), both of which were adopted by Freedom Forum’s board of trustees in June and September 2025. The plan provides guidance for the future of Freedom Forum’s collection and enables Freedom Forum to steward the collection in accordance with the public trust principles that are the foundation of the museum field.

Moving forward

In accordance with the plan, and to ensure the collection clearly supports outcomes associated with Freedom Forum’s Theory of Change and is within the organization’s capacity to steward and activate its collection, we are:

• Shaping a streamlined and flexible collection in accordance with the Collection Development section of the Collection Management Policy
• Retaining only items from the collection that align closely with our mission to foster First Amendment freedoms for all and that bring to life stories and moments connected to the First Amendment
• Removing a significant segment of materials from the collection (a process known as deaccessioning) for transfer to new institutions

Deaccessioning is a responsibility we take seriously and is a standard, ethical practice for organizations stewarding collections. Through this, we are ensuring that donated objects continue to serve the charitable purpose for which they were gifted, keeping them in the public trust and making them accessible to new audiences.

We are deeply grateful to those donors who entrusted us to preserve and share their artifacts with the public as part of our collection. These contributions helped amplify powerful stories about the free press and First Amendment freedoms for Newseum visitors, educators and researchers. We trust that they will inspire and educate new audiences at relevant institutions, which will provide new homes and new avenues for public access.

Because the process is complex and involves coordination with multiple institutions, it will continue through 2026. If you have questions about the process, please contact us at [email protected].