The Monroe County History Center will open its first ever newspaper exhibit on Monday, highlighting two centuries of journalism in the county.
The exhibit, “Breaking News: The Past and Uncertain Future of Local Print Journalism,” will consist of three galleries.
The Brown gallery covers the time period 1824-1960, and contains newspaper and industry history. The Hill gallery provides a visual timeline of over 200 years of newspapers in Monroe County. The Rechter gallery provides information on how technology and internet advancements affected news from 1962 to today.
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Hilary Fleck, curator of the history center, said she worked with the Bloomington Press Club, Indiana University, the Monroe County Public Library and the Indiana State Library to sort through archives over the past 10 months.
Even though it was challenging at times, Fleck said the process was very rewarding. She was particularly interested in learning about former Herald Times editor Perry Stewart.
“Through my research, collecting oral histories and interviewing former employees and co-workers of Perry Stewart that he was a larger-than-life person,” Fleck said. “His impact on the paper was very important and really set the paper off on a great trajectory.”
Fleck said the center will host family programs and speaker panels. The speaker panel in September will cover the history of news. Another panel in December will discuss what the future of local news could look like. There will also be activities where visitors can identify photographs from an archive and learn how newspapers are made.
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Fleck said she thinks it is important to open this exhibit so people can learn about how the newspaper industry has changed over the last 200 years.
“We try to bring you the history, but we also try to leave you with the question, what does the future look like?,” Fleck said. “We don’t have that answer, but collectively as a community, we should think about it. Where are the gaps, what’s not getting reported? And what’s the impact of that?”
The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The exhibit will run through December. Admission is $2 per person.