As C-Span Turns 40, a Top Executive Reflects on Bringing Cameras to Congress

The person who was really most instrumental is Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who had been one of the old-line members who was very much an institutionalist and very much concerned about how the Senate would change. He went home to West Virginia to speak and was introduced in West Virginia, his home state, as the speaker of the House. And it’s because he had a big shock of white hair, as did the then-Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill. And this brought it all home to him. So he convinced some of the recalcitrant members, they did a vote and C-Span went on in June of 1986.

What is one of your most significant memories from your time at C-Span?

The day that the Challenger shuttle exploded we were televising it live, and I believe I was on the air as the shuttle was going up. And it became very clear as you watched that picture of the shuttle that this was a major catastrophe.

We sat and watched as long as NASA took pictures, and then the story began to unfold. Then we opened up our phone lines. There was just an incredible outpouring from around the country of people witnessing this absolute tragedy, human tragedy and also technological tragedy unfold in front of their eyes.

C-Span has given politicians a platform to connect directly with their constituents, but now they can do that on social media. Is C-Span still relevant?

C-Span’s relevance comes in the form of not only all of the events that we cover every day but within minutes after we televise them, they are digitized and stored on our video archives. It has 250,000 hours of political video that we’ve covered since 1987.

That means a member of Congress can pull a clip from their hearing and send it out to constituents. It also means that people on social media or late-night comedians have immediate access to this.

I think most people who are in their 20s or younger, if they have an experience with C-Span it is through social media, it is through the late-night comedians. The creation of our video library in 1987 was every bit as significant as the original creation of C-Span.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/business/media/cspan-live-anniversary.html?partner=rss&emc=rss