Tuesday 19 March 2019

gavel-to-gavel coverage

On this day, four decades ago, the US cable and satellite television network C-SPAN first televised congressional proceedings from the floor of the House of Representatives.
The first member featured on the debut broadcast was then-Tennessee representative Al Gore. It was not until June of 1986, however, before the Senate permitted a live-feed that remained independent and wholly out of their control. I have fond memories of watching legislating in progress for hours on end and had it gently explained to me that classical music actually was not piped into the chambers during a vote (I thought that was a nice alternative to muzak or the general din) but that it was rather the doing of the programming manager during a call-in.