While billed as a public service, in actuality C-Span is little more than cable networks’ “thank you” to Congress for allowing their monopolies to exist. It is representative democracy live and unedited. And it?s quite possibly the best thing on TV.
While C-Span admittedly carries more than its share of sub-par programming, it is also home to some of the best shows on television.
My personal favorite is “White House Press Briefing,” hosted these days by Ari Fleischer. In essence, the show consists of Fleischer delivering the word of the president while dodging verbal tomatoes from the White House press corps. Fleischer tries desperately (and often unsuccessfully) to avoid verbal gaffes, as the unpopular press corps batters the happy-go-lucky spokesman.
Since Sept. 11, the show’s popularity has snowballed; other networks now run daily clips of Fleischer and his press corps. Recent popular episodes include “Americans should watch their mouths” and “Trust me, the Vice President is still alive.”
Three years ago, the show reached its all-time popularity with the Lewinski-gate series, then starring Mike McCurry as its host. McCurry balanced humor with humbleness, occasionally donning a brown paper bag over his head to deliver “anonymous” information as he detailed the president’s love affair with an intern.
“White House Press Briefing” is not the only show to improve since Sept. 11. In recent weeks, C-Span has added an all-star line up of daily presidential addresses, Cabinet-level press briefings and Congressional committee hearings about war and homeland security.
The shift has injected a breath of fresh air into a network that was admittedly struggling to make tax cuts and bipartisanship entertaining.
Building on the format of “White House Press Briefing,” “Pentagon Briefing” is arguably this fall’s best new show.
Co-hosted by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint-Chiefs chairman Richard Myers, “Pentagon Briefing” features a two-host format that serves to keep the Pentagon reporters more in line than the uppity White House corps. While solo Fleischer is clearly disliked by the rest of his shows’ cast, Rumsfeld demands respect in “Pentagon Briefing,” serving for more entertaining and enlightening dialogue.
Recent episodes of “Pentagon Briefing,” including “Cruise missile attack” and “Commando raid,” have featured grainy videos of explosions and special-ops troops. Like all cutting-edge TV, the producers of “Pentagon Briefing” have yet to perfect their show’s new features. Nevertheless, “Pentagon Briefing” has already established itself as one of C-Span’s most popular and critically acclaimed new shows.
In addition to the upstart programming, classic shows like “Congressional Committee Hearing” and “Senate Floor Coverage” have also improved since Sept. 11. Pre-Sept. 11, partisan infighting, personal vendettas and bureaucratic entanglements largely fueled shows that took place in the Capitol. But since the attacks, Capitol-based shows have wisely written the new terrorism fears into their plots.
“Committee Hearing” is especially adept at recycling the much-watched “Hijacked Airliner” and “Anthrax in the Senate Majority Leader’s office” episodes, often putting a new spin on the plot with guest appearances by Cabinet Secretaries Tommy Thompson and Colin Powell.
Recently, both “Committee Hearing” and “Floor Coverage” have shown new promises of drama and emotion.
Historically, C-Span’s primetime audience has lagged, presumptively because of its low-traffic location between lesser public access stations. Recognizing the challenges of courting new viewers, C-Span replays its star-studded primetime lineup every morning between 2-5 a.m. when insomniacs, nocturnal college kids and newspaper editors are least apt to find something better on TV. These are exciting times for America and television. C-Span is on the revolution’s front lines, adeptly offering high drama, strong characters and a healthy dose of non-fiction. Grades:
