Changing Channels

C-SPAN's Brian Lamb on how unfiltered reporting and media competition are transforming American politics.

Thomas W. Hazlett from the March 1996 issue

(Page 3 of 9)

The biggest problem with Vietnam was that it was evolutionary, step-by-step, day-by-day. It was Chinese water torture, drip, drip, drip. Before you knew it you had 500,000 troops there and there was never open discussion or a vote taken of any significance that the public participated in. Yes, there was a Tonkin Gulf resolution, but now we understand that the set-up for it was a phony.

Reason: How did C-SPAN come to be?

Lamb: C-SPAN was conceived from 1975 to '77 and started in 1979. You can credit one piece of technology--the satellite--and a group of human beings who were leaders in the cable television industry who said, when they were presented with this idea, "Let's try it." And it came at a time when there was a need for new programming.

Reason: For decades now, the government has said that it wants public affairs programming. But nobody seems to concede that deregulation has achieved exactly the goal the government sought through regulation of broadcasters. People complain about the broadcast networks, but none of them compare to C-SPAN.

Lamb: There's an enormous disconnect between what has happened and what people in the business of talking and thinking about television say has happened. I don't understand it.

Our network [will carry] a panel discussion among so-called media experts, and they will sit there and decry the state of current-affairs [programming] as if we don't even exist. They will appear on this network, in front of our microphones, saying, "What this country needs is an opportunity for people to be heard. What it needs is an opportunity for long-form discussion. What it needs is an opportunity for more voices out there to get a chance to speak their minds." And I'm sitting there watching, saying, "What's wrong with my brain--am I missing something here?"

Telecommunications is not a partisan issue. I have seen Republicans work very hard at preventing the new communications from coming along, and they're supposed to be interested in deregulation. I've seen Democrats very interested in deregulation, in opening it up. One of our great friends at this network was [former Rep.] Lionel Van Deerlin, who was chairman of the communications subcommittee in the House in 1976. Nobody alive, ever to serve in Congress, did more for the creation of new networks than Lionel Van Deerlin. And it was in the midst of a very partisan period.

Reason: And Van Deerlin was opposed by Barry Goldwater.

Lamb: He was opposed by Barry Goldwater.

Reason: The press routinely characterizes deregulation as pro-business, pro-monopoly, whereas the pro-regulation argument is given very different treatment as pro-consumer, and for the "public interest."

Lamb: I'll tell you one little story. I was asked to testify in 1991 about the 1992 legislation that [reregulated] cable television. I've been very careful not to be a part of the industry's lobbying effort, and to stay as independent as humanly possible. But when it came to our own livelihood being affected, I agreed to testify. [Rep.] Ed Markey [D-Mass.] was chairman, and I sat there and said, "If you pass must-carry and retransmission consent [the requirements in the 1992 cable bill that local cable systems carry every local broadcast channel even if they duplicate other channels' programming, or pay broadcasters who wish to charge for their signals], you will hurt C-SPAN--the only non-profit public affairs network in this country. You will hurt this network, we will be set back, our growth will be stymied, and we will lose homes."

At the same desk, [testifying] that same day is Larry Tisch, [CEO of] CBS, and he is protesting that if [the broadcast networks] don't get retransmission consent, and must-carry, they will be out of business. The implication was that they would be hurt badly.

In fact, there are 7 million homes in the United States that have lost C-SPAN because of must-carry and retransmission...

Reason: Seven million?

Lamb: Seven million.