January - May 1993

My five months interning at C-SPAN was an incredible learning experience that greatly expanded my horizons and changed the goals I had in my career and in life. It also exposed me to things I had never seen or thought about before and reinforced my desire to work in news. It was a chance encounter that brought me to C-SPAN.

My first day at C-SPAN was Wednesday, January 13, the day after arriving. Just finding my way to the network's building near the Capitol was an adventure. I rode a subway for the first time that morning, joining the crush of rush hour passengers, transferring trains once to get to Union Station. Then I had to wander around a little bit to find my way to 400 North Capitol Street, where C-SPAN's offices were located on the sixth floor.

I was one of about a dozen interns at the network that spring, although I rarely saw the others because we were all in different departments. Shortly after starting, we all met for an orientation with Brian Lamb, the Chairman, CEO and founder of C-SPAN. He was a familiar face to me because he was one of the most frequent program hosts. I became a great admirer of him, not only because of his intelligence and ability, but also because of the effort he took in making sure all of us understood the mission and purpose of C-SPAN. He really did have an open door policy and was always happy to answer any questions. Lamb would also sometimes wander down the halls, talking to everyone along the way. He seemed to have a hand in everything that happened at the network.

The department I was interning in was responsible for producing a weekly, hour-long public radio program called "C-SPAN's Weekly Radio Journal." Fed to stations on late Friday afternoons, it was meant to run on weekends as a look back at the past week in national politics. It also tried to follow the C-SPAN format of long-form programming by using two to three minute segments of raw audio for each story.

Mine was a small department comprised of two people: Audio Networks Manger Beth Talisman and Producer Tom Patton. Beth had been with the network several years by this time, working in a number of different positions. Tom had most recently worked for Voice Of America and had been with C-SPAN a year or two by that point. Most days I worked beside Tom as we selected cuts for each story and did the technical work of getting the show ready for production, which typically meant recording and chopping reel-to-reel tape. We also had technical assistance on Fridays from engineer Chris Montgomery. The photo to the right comes from a contact sheet, showing Tom and Chris outside C-SPAN during a visit more than a year after my internship in 1994. Unfortunately I haven't found any photos of Beth.

On most Mondays Tom, Beth and I would meet with company Vice-President Susan Swain to look at what events C-SPAN was planning to cover that week and what guests were scheduled for network programs. We would then determine which of these would be of interest for the radio program and could then make a rough layout of what issues and stories we would address on that week's show.

Final production, mixing the narration with the raw segments of the program, was usually started on late Friday mornings, with dubs made and a courier picking up the final master reel, which was taken to NPR's uplink facility and transmitted to radio stations at 5 pm. Some carried that feed live, but most taped it for later broadcast over the weekend. Even though the program was uplinked by NPR, it was not an NPR program. C-SPAN paid to use its uplink services since most stations that carried the show were public radio stations. However there were a handful of commercial stations that also aired it.

This was the routine every week that I went through for five months. It always started off kind of slow and picked up, sometimes moving to a frantic pace toward the end of the week as we worked to get everything together. In particular, if something we wanted to include was happening on a Friday, it would push production to the last minute.

It was a very fascinating and exciting time to be in Washington as a new President took office. That was especially true for me as I watched Bill Clinton, who had been my governor for so many years, begin his first term as President. I had not always been a supporter of him. In fact, in 1990 I campaigned for his Democratic opponent Tom McRae during the primary for Arkansas Governor. But three years later I couldn't help but join in the excitement to see someone from my home state begin leading the nation. I tried, but couldn't get anywhere close enough to see him take the oath of office. But a little while later I did at least get to see him ride by during the inaugural parade.

I was very idealistic about politics at that moment, thinking we were on the verge of a new era in our nation. Before my internship, my minor in college had been political science. But spending five months in Washington left me rather disillusioned and killed all interest I had in politics.

A good part of it was the nasty tone things took in Washington immediately after Clinton was elected. It seemed Republicans were looking for every opportunity to tear the President down. Each week during my internship I was hearing the nasty tone of confirmation hearings for Clinton's appointments. His opponents worked hard to make him as divisive and controversial as possible, with gays in the military among the first issues thrown at him. But I also saw a degree of arrogance from the Clinton administration that turned me off. It was then that politics and who to support firmly became to me to be the lessor of the evils.

Because the internship for my roommate Chris was only a month long, in February I moved to Alexandria, Virginia, where the same roommate matching service had hooked me up with three people who were interning in Washington's public defenders office. Alexandria was much different than living in the district because I could get around much easier by car. There were actually parking lots in front of places. But I still took the Metro in most days and really grew to appreciate what a good subway system is like.

A month or so into my internship I sent a letter to my buddy Doug Clifford, who had given me my first position when he was program director at KABF in Little Rock. By this time, to be near his daughter, he had moved to the central Florida town of Ocala and was hosting the morning show on WOCA, an AM news and talk station. He was impressed that I was in Washington and asked if I wanted to join him on the air once a week to discuss what was happening in national politics.

For the next few months I would join Doug, usually on Friday mornings, as WOCA's Washington correspondent, talking for two to three minutes about the top political story of the day. I would also join him on the mornings after important events or speeches. I also tried to localize national stories, sometimes by including details like how Senators or Representatives from Doug's area had voted on specific legislation.

I wasn't being paid for my work, but was happy to help Doug and figured it would give me a little more real news experience to put on my resume. Indeed it had been noted by the news director who would give me my next job when I returned to my hometown of Little Rock.

C-SPAN really went out of its way to make the internships rewarding for us. Toward the end of each semester Brian Lamb would invite interns to appear with him live on his morning show. I was fortunate that one of the two guests was someone I was familiar with from Arkansas. Senator David Pryor had served as Arkansas Governor during the 1970's and was at that time the state's junior U.S. Senator. The first question I asked was about his health. He had undergone triple by-pass surgery the year before and I was curious how he was doing and whether the health problems had affected his plans for the future. I was stunned to learn from my parents the next day that his response generated a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. With the headline, "Heart may not be in it for the next race," the story detailed how Senator Pryor, appearing on C-SPAN, said this might be his final term. It was apparently his first public comments about that and indeed at the end of that term he would retire, as his son Mark Pryor began his political career.