What do you think of C-SPAN?

[sharkbait2]

A poster at capitalgrilling is arguing that it should be on public channels. I think its boring to watch and often biased towards the right a lot of times...

"Part of the mission of CG is to shine a spotlight on the inside-the-beltway politics. In this regard, we are rather limited in the audience we are able to reach, which is miniscule compared to the reach of television and mass media including the smallest stations. With the exception of perhaps PBS, most public channels do little to educate and inform, but rather flood the airwaves with increasingly irrelevant entertainment programming nearly saturating the reality show market, and broadcasting highly biased news coverage replete with falsehoods and spin.
I think it has become absolutely vital for the average American to be exposed to the actions of their legislators. An “uneducated” America is one that fosters an environment for corruption and abuse of power by elected officials and special interests and creates a government that fears no repercussions from manipulating the people of this country in pursuit of absolute power.

C-SPAN serves an important and unique role in broadcasting direct coverage of Senate and Congressional hearings, and providing mostly unbiased coverage of important legislation and public affairs issues in US government. Unfortunately, C-SPAN is only available on cable due to the fact that it is a creation of the Cable companies.

What I would like to propose is that the government syndicate C-SPAN coverage on local channels in order to reach a wider audience that does not have access to, or cannot afford cable. I am not suggesting that C-SPAN become a government operation like PBS but rather that the government pay C-SPAN to carry the channel on public airwaves."

http://www.capitolgrilling.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=010747

[mandyky]

1. I watch CSpan daily

Thank god I have cable. We just got access to CSpan 2 and I watch their Book TV almost every weekend. I tune in daily to Washington Journal, but I rarely watch the House or Senate unless I know they are discussing something I find important. I wish CSpan was available to folks without cable.

[AndyTiedye]

4. Our Cable Doesn't Have CSPAN

[mandyky]

10. Man, that suck!

What cable company? Have you called them?

I called Adelphia for over a year, and we just got CSpan 2 and MSNBC.

[prolesunited]

2. I love CSPAN!

It's the only place you can get events live in their entirety without all of the spin. They seem to divide their coverage in a balanced way. I also enjoy watching Washington Journal every morning. Beats the hell out of perky Katie Couric. That's pretty balanced, except for fascist Fridays with Brian Lamb.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

3. The live, unedited coverage of Congress is fantastic

I turned off my TV service more than a year ago. In July when the uranium controversy took off I wanted to watch the news so I turned it back on. Well, I only left it on for a week but it did remind me how good CSPAN is. If I hadn't been watching CSPAN I would never have known the real story on the 'cops being called incident' for example. It was not accurately reported anywhere.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

5. They do give equal time to both sides!

Either I watch them, the evening news shows, 60 Minutes, or the BBC!

To Hell with Cable "News"!

[sharkbait2]

6. Government funding would = control?

One of them posted that giving governement funding to CSPAN would allow members of congress to gain influence over the coverage and corrupt the station.

[qanda]

7. I probably wouldn't be at DU without C-SPAN...

I cannot live without Washington Journal. The ability to call and voice our opinions to our elected leaders is vital to our democracy. C-SPAN is about the only reason I keep cable.

Edit: Missed a word!

[corarose]

8. 3 Right Wingers in a row this morning......They are biased to the right!

I forgot who they had on first but the next guest was Tilly a woman with my dearly departed birds name and then they had a Hutchison on.
Did they have a Democrat on this morning? I don't think so!

[DealsGapRider]

9. One criticism of SPAN...

...is that by putting cameras on the House and Senate floor, we've made it so every word that is spoken is not directed toward members of Congress, but toward the people back home. What's so bad about that? It has turned every single floor statement into a campaign speech. There is almost zero true debate on the House and Senate floors...all the comments are directed at some constituency that the member of Congress is trying to please.

Also, in order to appeal to the maximum number of constituents, members of Congress have totally dumbed down their discourse. The days of the extremely eloquent, extemporaneous floor speeches are long gone. Now the all sound like dolts.

[sharkbait2]

11. politicians cant debate anymore

Can you really blame that on CSPAN? maybe the days of eloquent politicians are long gone... most of them are probably used to the cameras and dont think their constituents are watching anyway...

[qanda]

12. Please remind me of the days

of extremely eloquent, extemporaneous floor speeches. I'm only in my 30's so maybe I just don't remember hearing about them.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

14. It was watching Kerry give eloquent, extemporaneous floor speeches

back in the 90's when I was a CSPAN junkie that made me into a Kerry fan.

[DealsGapRider]

15. Go back and read floor speeches...

...from the 19th century. Or from the first half of the 20th century. They delivered more eloquent speeches extemporaneously back then than members of Congress deliver today that are prepared in advance.

[LeftHander]

13. Love it!

To see Greg Palast, Micheal Moore on Book TV was awesome. As was seeing the awful Ann Coulter spew her spin.

Wathcing the CSPAN during the heady days of the patriot act and Iraq war resolution introduced me to Dennis Kucinich. And reinforced my belief that republicans ARE clones of each other. Same messege all the time from everyone.

And who could ever forget any speech by Robert Byrd or the compassion of Paul Wellstone. Where would you ever get to see that?

Simply put C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 does more in ONE DAY than all of commercial TV services do ALL YEAR.

[kentuck]

16. We would not be able to see Robert Byrd if not for C-SPAN

Because none of the networks would show him...