Don't Wake Up, Congressman. You're Not On TV Yet.
As Al Kamen notes in today's Washington Post, C-SPAN recently asked incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if the new Congress (which she has said will be "the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," Kamen notes) would consider adding more cameras to allow more liberal visual access to the chamber. C-SPAN chief Brian Lamb argued in a letter to Pelosi that the current system is "an anachronism that does a disservice to the institution and to the public."
Pelosi denied the request in a letter, writing that the current system should remain: "Under the current practice, every word spoken in an exchange between Members or between the Chair and a Member is broadcast live. This programming informs the American people and ensures an accurate historical record. It has served the American people and the House and Senate well since the advent of televised proceedings nearly 30 years ago."
After an editorial in USA Today yesterday opposed that decision, and Pelosi was invited to write an opposing view to the editorial (which she declined), her office told the paper that "she intends to meet with Lamb soon to discuss a possible compromise."
USA Today's argument in favor of greater camera access suggested that such a move could have some practical impact: "Perhaps there'd be less blatant arm-twisting and deal-making on the floor during close votes, such as the 2003 roll call on the Medicare prescription drug benefit that lasted three hours instead of the customary 15 minutes. Perhaps members would be less likely to doze or read magazines while colleagues are debating. And perhaps lawmakers would be less inclined to deliver stemwinders to empty chambers if they knew their lack of an audience would be apparent."
As for the opposing view, Donald Wolfensberger, former staff director of the House Rules Committee and current director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
argues in USA Today that Pelosi "is right to reject the request."
He writes that "[s]uch free-roaming lens-groping would defeat the original purpose of broadcasting House debates," which is, according to a 1978 Rules Committee report: "to provide a complete, uninterrupted, and accurate record of the official proceedings and business of the House — a kind of visual and audio parallel to the Congressional Record." Aspects of coverage like reaction shots would undermine "the more fundamental need for a complete, uninterrupted, undistracted, unbiased, and completely accurate record of the official actions of the House."
For television news producers, the lack of elements such as reaction shots takes away from their ability to fully cover events on the floor, said producer Steve Chaggaris, who is also the chairman of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association. The RTCA also sent a letter to Pelosi supporting the idea to allow independent cameras in the House chamber.
"There's a lot of color that goes on during votes," he said. "It would help us in our coverage if we could get shots of what's going on on the floor."
While all on-the-record utterances on the floor are broadcast by cameras, "we don't have editorial control," says Chaggaris. "The only thing we're allowed to do is take [footage from] a government-run television feed. If [Pelosi] wants to make this house more open and accessible, one way to do that would be by letting TV networks and C-SPAN put our own cameras in there."