C-SPAN Turns 40

C-SPAN, the public service cable network that covers Congress and so much more, turned 40 years old this year. Many of my Facebook friends are noting this milestone by sharing screen shots or clips of their own C-SPAN moments, and I have enough of an ego to do the same. I have two of them…

The first is from January of 1995. At the time I was working for Sen. Edward Kennedy and the Senator had just delivered a speech at the National Press Club on the topic of ‘Maintaining Democratic Party Principles’ in the face of electoral losses to Republicans in the previous election. Faced with new GOP majorities in both the House and the Senate, the Senator spoke to how Democrats must stick to their values and not become just “warmed over Republicans”. In the Q&A that followed, Sen. Kennedy was asked about the advantage that the GOP had developed in delivering their message via talk radio and cable television, and what the Democrats would do to catch up. And about 30 seconds into his reply, came my first C-SPAN moment. I wasn’t watching the speech live myself, and I remember getting a call from a co-worker who was with the Senator at the Press Club warning me that my phone would likely start ringing with calls from reporters and that I shouldn’t respond until I had spoken with the press secretary. “Why would I be getting calls from reporters?”, I asked. “Because he just said your name in response to a question.” And they were kind words indeed.

My second clip is more than a mention, but me in the flesh. It was when my book, The Hill on the Net: Congress Enters the Information Age was published. I think it holds up, how about you? Terrible haircut, but at least I still had hair! There’s a great commercial for C-SPAN’s own website at the start that I just had to keep in place as it really helps provide a flavor and look at the 1996 time frame of the interview and the state of the web at the time.