C-SPAN Civics bus makes several stops in Richmond area

When is a bus more than just a bus? When it's a 44,000-pound C-SPAN production center on wheels.

A C-SPAN Civics Bus, one of two that is crossing the country to reach 100 schools in 100 days during the first 100 days of President Barack Obama's administration, made a stop at Douglas Freeman High School in Henrico County yesterday morning. It was the 57th stop on the tour.

Three other local stops were scheduled -- yesterday afternoon at Virginia Union University in Richmond and then today at Monacan and James River high schools in Chesterfield County.

At Freeman, students climbed aboard the 45-foot-long bus, which doubles as a mobile production center, to learn about C-SPAN and how the satellite TV network uses the bus to broadcast news.

Teacher Bridget Reichert's Foundations of Leadership class was among the first to board and learn about C-SPAN's operations from marketing representatives Sarah Parker and Jennifer Curran.

Parker and Curran showed the students that the bus is a fully operational, mobile production center and a command center.

Nearly 2 miles of cable are stored in the luggage area, and the back portion of the bus is equipped with two cameras to tape interviews. The bus has controls set up for a director to control the cameras and a sound engineer to adjust the audio.

In 1995, then-President Bill Clinton was interviewed on the same bus that was sitting in the Freeman parking lot yesterday. Curran showed them a clip of Clinton boarding the vehicle for the interview.

The C-SPAN Civics Bus also was used throughout last year's presidential election, covering caucuses, primaries and speeches across the country. On election night, the bus was in Arizona providing coverage of Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate, Curran said.

Parker told the students C-SPAN doesn't manipulate camera placement or angles to project its views onto a story, nor does the company use commentators to provide live, running analysis of news conferences.

"The story is good enough to unfold and tell itself," Parker told the students.

C-SPAN, created 30 years ago as a public-affairs cable channel, offers live, unedited coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives on C-SPAN1 and of the U.S. Senate on C-SPAN2. On Wednesday mornings, C-SPAN2 provides live, unedited coverage of "Prime Minister's Questions" from the House of Commons in London, where the prime minister answers questions from members of Parliament.

Austin Link, a freshman in Reichert's class, said he appreciates C-SPAN's straightforward approach to broadcasting government news. "I usually just watch Fox [News] and MSNBC, and they have all kinds of different camera angles, and they portray people with power differently than other stations," Link said. "C-SPAN just does regular portrayal. They don't [take] a real side -- they just try to give the facts straight up to people."

Reichert said the chance to learn about C-SPAN was beneficial for her students and will enhance discussions in her leadership class.

"It's a wonderful experience for the students to get to see the unbiased reporting that C-SPAN has," she said. "I know they'll all go home and watch C-SPAN, to see what it's really like now."

Contact Jeremy Slayton at (804) 649-6861 or .