Van Nuys : Students Tune In to ‘Network of Record’

Before the lemon-yellow school bus bearing the blue C-SPAN logo arrived at Millikan Middle School, eighth-grader Lupe Romo hadn’t even heard of the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network, let alone watched it.

But after touring the 45-foot-long television studio on wheels and seeing the three television cameras, the eight-channel audio board, the fax machine, the studio lights and the two laser disc players, Lupe delivered a verdict.

“It’s cool,” she said.

Students at Millikan and Grant High School in Van Nuys experienced the bus--which travels the nation following local and national campaigns--during a Southland stop Tuesday.

As C-SPAN representative David Almacy showed footage of a Senate debate to a dozen students, he explained the channel’s mission: to provide gavel to gavel, balanced coverage of politics without commentary.

“The political network of record,” as C-SPANers call it, is informative, Almacy told the students. Who else, after all, covers every word of a Bill Clinton speech? And all of House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s rebuttal, thus allowing the viewers to reach independent opinions?

But, Almacy acknowledged, “It’s not the most interesting thing on TV.”

Sitting in the bus with backpacks on their laps, the Millikan students watched photographs of U.S. and world leaders flash by on monitors.

Encouraged to blurt out names of people they recognized, they shouted “Bill Clinton,” “Bob Dole” and “Pete Wilson.”

Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were stumpers, but Almacy said the knowledge of American students amazes him.

“I go into schools assuming they students don’t know anything, but they do. A big part of our job is to educate,” he said.

By the end of her 30-minute tour, Lupe was almost a C-SPAN convert.

“I like C-SPAN because they allow everyone to have their own opinion. They don’t judge everybody or anything. And they cover all of an event, not just little pieces.”

But she’s not ready to abandon MTV altogether.

“I might switch to C-SPAN a couple of times now,” Lupe said.