Founder of C-SPAN speaks about importance of openness in government

If there is not a record of history, people will make it up, said Brian Lamb, the founder of C-SPAN, at University of Richmond Thursday night.

C-SPAN is a non-profit television network that televises and archives many U.S. government proceedings, including those of the House of Representatives and Senate.

Lamb spoke to a crowd of about 40 people on the importance of providing everyone with the ability to see their government at work, especially when many politicians would prefer that their proceedings take place in private.

“If they decide to start doing more things off camera, don’t trust them,” Lamb said. “If you can’t do your business in public in a democracy, there’s something seriously wrong.”

While working as a journalist in Washington, D.C., Lamb developed and launched C-SPAN in 1979 with the backing of several cable executives. Lamb said he had seen how much power the major news channels had and wanted to give people the option of seeing government proceedings for themselves.

As a non-profit, C-SPAN is unique from other news channels because it does not rely on ratings or advertisements for money, Lamb said. For funding, the network receives a six-cent monthly fee from cable companies for each subscriber they have.

“There’s no advertisements, no ratings, no stars,” Lamb said. “Our mission is to just give you what’s happening as it’s happening, and then you’re on your own.”

Lamb, who retired in 2012 as C-SPAN’s CEO but still hosts the show “Q&A,” said that while he does not tell people his own political opinions, he does try to reveal the political opinions of the people he interviews, particularly historians.

“A lot of history is written by people who love what they are writing about and is from their own perspective,” Lamb said. “Check their politics as to why they write fabulous things about a president or a member of congress.”

Lamb spoke about the difficulty he had in both getting work as a journalist and in founding C-SPAN, but he told students that with the Internet, they have a great opportunity to create something new on their own.

C-SPAN’s greatest asset is that it can focus on presenting a balanced account of the government’s actions and does not have to be concerned with how many people are watching, Lamb said. Even though a small percentage of people may want to watch the government’s proceedings, C-SPAN is able to present everyone with the option of watching them and staying informed.

“I’ve had people come up to me that have no college degrees who have taught themselves the system just by watching,” Lamb said. “The access is there if you want it.”

Contact staff writer Jack Clark at john.s.clark@richmond.edu