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Pastimes : THE SLIGHTLY MODERATED BOXING RING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (7622)	4/8/2002 9:54:48 AM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

C-SPAN founder airs views about TV news BRIAN LAMBERT Media Columnist Brian Lamb of C-SPAN is one of the improbable folk heroes of 21st century media. C-SPAN's founder and guiding personality is a study in eerie even-handedness. He insists, as he did again during a Twin Cities appearance Tuesday evening, that C-SPAN is indeed journalism, in that it is not just unedited, unfiltered raw feed. Editorial decisions and choices are made. But they are made in a way that deprives the usual partisan whiners any ground from which to make the tiresome, and usually disingenuous, charges of "bias." For that reason, and others, the self-effacing, almost wallpaper-like Mr. Lamb was warmly embraced by a paying crowd of several hundred at the University of Minnesota's Ted Mann Concert Hall. He was in town as the latest guest in a series titled "Great Conversations," moderated this time by University of Minnesota professor Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law. The series, by the way, has been picked up by Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) and will begin running on Channel 17 on April 21. Kirtley's chat with Lamb (more of an interview, truth be told) is scheduled for May 12. C-SPAN's operative philosophy is that since it isn't in the business to make money, it can truly practice what it implicitly preaches. Namely, that its viewers are smart enough to figure out what's going on at events it televises without the aid of anchors and pundits. "C-SPAN is supposed to be a place for you to come where we're not telling you what to think," Lamb says. It's a stark contrast with the hot new trend in TV/cable "news" programming, where news "analysis" and the exploitation of pre-existing opinion is all the sizzle. Several other Lamb views: • He suspects it'll be "a long time before we get the Supreme Court" to allow live television coverage. (C-SPAN radio runs Supreme Court arguments when they are released … six months after the actual court date.) The reasons, he believes, are: (1) The justices' concerns about security. (2) Their fear that lawyers would grandstand for the cameras. (3) Their fear that their court colleagues would grandstand. (Of course Clarence Thomas would have to say something first.) But most of all, Lamb suspects the justices are worried about their own comments being excerpted for 3-second sound bites and "Saturday Night Live"-like comedy. • He says he doubts the press will ever again enjoy the battlefield access it had in Vietnam and is surprised by the lack of outrage over how tightly the coverage has been controlled in the current "war on terror." • Contrary to many cultural pundits, he believes newspapers, and not television, set the country's news priorities. (He says he reads six a day.) He says the books on his popular Sunday evening interview series, "Booknotes," are "chosen blind. We pick them for balance, not necessarily because they're great books." • At 32 minutes, comedian/activist Dick Gregory gave the longest response to a single C-SPAN question. • He believes the major networks will eventually discontinue their evening news shows, and that lamentations are misplaced. "We should stop worrying about these nightly newscasts and let people watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it. There'll be plenty of choice." • He says, "The media has only itself to blame for this stupid conversation about bias." The great mistake, he says, is professional journalists constantly advertising themselves as "fair and balanced." "They're not," Lamb says, "and they never have been." He says he loves "nothing more than listening to Rush Limbaugh for three hours or reading (New York Times columnist) Tom Friedman" because "you know where they're coming from and where you fit in." But, he says, "There ought to be more liberal talk on talk radio. That's the big void right now." The April 21 episode of "Great Conversations" features University of Minnesota President Mark Yudof talking with former Clinton aide, now "Crossfire" host, Paul Begala. twincities.com