We did so much during these weeks that I could write a separate blog post for each day; however, I’ll try to consolidate and highlight the best moments for me. Our very first site visit was one of these highlights. We went to C-SPAN, where William & Mary alum and C-SPAN producer Mark Farkas gave us a tour of the studios and an introduction to C-SPAN’s mission. It was very cool to get the insider’s view of the studio space; so many TVs and monitors!
~C-SPAN control room~
We next met with Barkley Kern, C-SPAN’s VP of Digital Media. He shared some fascinating information about the evolution of media in the past several decades, including the interesting fact that at night, Netflix use takes up 1/3 of the internet’s bandwidth. Another shocking tidbit is that from the beginning of recorded history through 2004, the world produced 5 exobytes of data; in 2011, it took 48 hours to produce 5 exobytes. To be honest, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that.
Our last speaker was the founder of C-SPAN, Brian Lamb. Hearing Mr. Lamb speak was quite an experience; he’s a very engaging, dynamic presenter, and shared with us one of his maxims: know where the money comes from to understand the media. He also recounted a few stories about interviewing Presidents Clinton and Obama. I could tell that Mr. Lamb was an interviewer at heart; he started asking us questions right away, and for a while it felt like he was there to learn about us, rather than the other way around. One takeaway from the C-SPAN visit was the idea of the interplay between content and context. Both are important, but one may take precedence given the issue at hand. Another takeaway was that people hoping to be involved with media need to know how to “shoot, produce, and edit;” simply specializing in one won’t land you the job.
~Lobby at C-SPAN~
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