C-SPAN Taking Government to the People : Television: The goal of the school bus equipped with production facilities is to increase awareness of the network in classrooms and around the country.

It’s big, it’s yellow and it stops at high schools.

This school bus, however, is out to deliver a message, not students. It’s a 45-foot, traveling TV production facility, a high-concept “rolling billboard” for C-SPAN, cable’s public-affairs network.

The $500,000 “C-SPAN School Bus” left Washington on Nov. 1 on an eight-month barnstorming tour of the country, planning to hit 100 schools in 85 communities. After a showcase stop at this week’s Western Cable Show in Anaheim, the bus will be back on the road next week, crisscrossing Southern California before moving north.

Monday’s schedule includes a trip to Gardena High School for a student forum on immigration (to be taped for later broadcast on C-SPAN), followed by a stop at Wilson High School in Long Beach, which Rep. Steve Horn (R-Long Beach) will attend. Tuesday, the bus will be in Palm Desert before moving on to San Diego on Wednesday and Thursday; Friday, the bus will be in Santa Barbara.

Received in 59.8 million homes, C-SPAN carries live, uninterrupted coverage of Congress and other governmental agencies and events, along with viewer call-in shows and other programming. With an $18-million annual budget, the network is a nonprofit service of the cable industry, funded collectively by local cable operators.

The goal of the school bus venture, said C-SPAN chairman Brian Lamb, is to increase awareness of the network in classrooms and elsewhere outside the Beltway. In a non-election year, said Lamb, “We needed some way to energize our own group internally, our industry relations and, most importantly, our audience.”

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Local cable operators are invited to visit the bus at its school stops. The bus is used to tape interviews with congressmen and other political leaders along the way and also to tape segments at historical sites. Five people travel with the bus, rotated from C-SPAN headquarters in Washington. Even Lamb travels, riding along for the first two weeks of the journey and planning a return in January, when the bus will be passing through Oklahoma and Texas.

For demonstrations, the bus is equipped with three color monitors, two VHS machines and two laser-disc players. The back of the bus is a studio with robotically controlled cameras that can be used for live broadcast or taped interviews.

Students and teachers are brought into the bus for a talk and video presentation on what C-SPAN is and how to use it in the classroom. Teachers are also given lesson-plan materials, and schools are eligible for equipment grants from the network. The idea, said C-SPAN spokeswoman Rayne Pollack, is to encourage teachers to tape governmental proceedings and public-affairs programs as a way to “bring government to life” for students.

At a time when many teachers are bombarded by companies with “educational” TV programming or teaching aids that are little more than thinly disguised commercial endorsements, Lamb emphasized that C-SPAN does not carry commercials and has no copyright restrictions on classroom use.

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“The best thing about it for high school teachers is we cost them nothing,” Lamb said. “What we’re trying to say is there might be a free lunch here. . . . You’re not going to have to deliver eyeballs to advertisers.”

Lamb added that the C-SPAN broadcasts are merely a tool, and “the teacher remains the most important person in the process. . . . The idea that TV would supplant the teacher is absurd.”

Students are reacting strongly to the presentations, Lamb said, although he admitted that much of the enthusiasm owes to the flashy technology. But he believes the message about C-SPAN, and its potential role for educating young people coming into voting age, is coming through.

Gratifyingly for Lamb, the bus is attracting attention wherever it goes. “This thing is a rolling billboard,” he said. “There’s something magic about this bus. Even out here in California, where they have everything, this thing is fun.”