C-SPAN: 25 YEARS VIEWER CALL-IN CONTEST

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Kathleen Holowach
El Cajon, CA
Cable Company: Cox Communications

C-SPAN Song:
Sung to a BackStreet Boys� �Tell Me Why� It�s ringing��hold the phone
Oh drat��a dial tone
Try again��I�m such a fan
I�m calling C-SPAN

They�re on the road today
Watch and hear the experts say
Museum tour is the plan
Thanks for showing it on C-SPAN

Tell me how that first time viewer got on
I�ve been pushing redial since the crack of dawn
It is Friday with Brian Lamb
The founder of C-SPAN

Read the papers from other towns
Red-necks call and say they�re clowns
Dems chime in and bash the right
The host remains ever polite

Callers from west, east, south, and north
Questions, comments they put forth
There is Holland, Canada, and Pakistan
They all call C-SPAN

Support the pres, time zone or voter reg,
we�re told how to call
Some people complain, they say there�s a bias
But, hey�. you can�t please them all

Pushing the buttons
Til I�m black and blue
I think I�m holding�
I GOT THROUGH!

Christopher Hitchens is the guest
Of the brainiacs, he is the best
He�ll recite, �If,� at the drop of a hat
No matter your party, you�ve got to like that

America�s voices are what you hear
Speaking of issues they hold dear
Children, teachers, veterans, woman or man
They all call C-SPAN

They all call C-SPAN
They all call C-SPAN
Thanks to Cable, Thanks to Brian Lamb
For creating C-SPAN

For creating C-SPAN

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Barrett Kalellis
Pinckney, MI
Cable Company: Charter Communicaitons

I watch C-SPAN to listen to the voices - voices of writers, reporters, politicians and administrators. Intelligent, educated voices sparring with shrill and intemperate ones. The voices of opinion columnists, hot off the presses of leading newspapers and magazines. I listen to the voices of callers, with their regional and foreign accents, expressing their righteous indignation, their strongly held beliefs and many times, their anger.

I watch C-SPAN because it takes seriously its goal of representing all reasonable points of view - inviting guests with conflicting beliefs from opposing political parties and organizations to lock horns. And I also find warm amusement in empathizing with C-SPAN anchors, who try to maintain a stonefaced impartiality as they field barbed assaults and invectives from frequently provocative callers.

I think C-SPAN embodies the idea of representative government writ large for all citizens interested in the future of their country. Whether you live in the smallest village or the largest city, where else can you see and hear up-close the process of national politics - the machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage? C-SPAN provides the nation's only consistent sounding board for competing ideas, and sometimes visions even, about how the country should be governed.

In the welter of these voices and the ideas they put forth, I choose which ones I like and those I don't. Those I believe and those I distrust. For in this constant sifting and churning and wrestling with ideas, I may finally glimpse the truth.

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Anthony J. Lee
Berkeley, CA
Cable Company: Comcast

After graduating from college in 2003, I wanted to jump into journalism or politics. My ambitions abruptly changed after seven lung operations and multiple battles with infections ravaged my body, leaving me 50 pounds underweight at 90 lbs. and barely able to eat, speak or breathe.

Though I obviously missed out on a lot of life, I recently asked myself if I had been healthy, could I have learned as much as I did from people like Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan and Jagdish Bhagwati on Washington Journal? Could I have better gauged how Democrats were fighting for their party's soul than by listening to callers after a John Edwards speech during the 2004 Democratic primary? Could I have better witnessed Americans grappling with our nation's tortuous struggle with the immigration issue than by listening to those who called-in after President Bush's speech in which he proposed a guest-worker program? Could I have gotten an opportunity anywhere else to eavesdrop on a four hour conversation with one of my intellectual role models, Victor Davis Hanson, on In-Depth? I answered these questions with a resounding "NO!"

C-SPAN let me in on a national conversation which oftentimes-included callers who were annoyed, paranoid, mean, impatient, know-it-alls, respectful, gracious, and thoughtful. In a nutshell, the beautiful panoply of callers represented the great quilt that is America, as C-SPAN is our generation's town hall. I am grateful for C-SPAN's call-in programs because they allowed me to take American's pulse while I was fighting to maintain mine.

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Ron LueDecke
Palms, California
Cable Company: Comcast Cable

Mute your TV, please!

Washington Journal contributes to an informed electorate! People get to see our democratic republic evolve its own laws! It's remarkably like watching the original Constitutional Convention, in person.

If our Founding Fathers were alive today, they would all be watching, muttering, and calling into Washington Journal!

Uniquely, this program acts as a social stethoscope, providing everyone, everyday, an opportunity to hear the American heartbeat!

Observing the diverse newspapers, WJ's audience gets to ponder what is happening, all over our country, Warts and All! Also, the Hotline, The Hill segments play like crazy sports bloopers. More please!

Herocially, the only chance some of our citizens will ever get to speak out in public, for what they believe, is on WJ! Never lose that, please!

As long as one remembers to MUTE one's TV, ANYONE can join in!

Some callers parrot their party line; others want answers. WJ remains impartial, using separate lines for opposing viewpoints, with one extra line for those oh so wacky Others. These far-flung seekers turn out to be the ultimate SUPPORT groups! By each show's end, all sides have gotten almost equal time. It's fair! WJ gets loud, and it's often rowdy, but it is chock full of information, and C-span's hosts are always fair.

This is why I watch and participate.

I watched Washington Journal on its first day, I watched it yesterday, and if America is OK, I'll watch Washington Journal tomorrow!

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Maria Lyda
Tulsa, OK
Cable Company: Cox Communications

I wasn't quite a teenager when Castro took over Cuba. My childhood there was colored by the upheaval of the Batista and Castro dictatorships. My brother and I were fortunate to be able to come the United States soon after Castro revealed his true intentions to an unsuspecting world.

Here I found my rudimentary English improving by reading newspapers. Reading nourished the insatiable need to find out what was happening in my homeland, where our parents had stayed. In college, my interest in public affairs increased exponentially. I marveled at newly found freedoms, particularly freedom of the press. The exhilaration I felt was only tempered by longing for my parents.

Years passed, my beloved husband Bill became ill with cancer. Everything changed, we were up at all hours. We would watch C-SPAN in the middle of the night if it was a bad night and if it was a good night, we would wake up to Washington Journal. It provided energy and connection to a world larger than the confines of our home or the hospital.

Toward the end of his courageous life, Bill felt victorious when he was able to "get through" and talk with Senator Inhofe. The exchange invigorated him mentally. Sadly, the disease couldn't be stopped and Bill died at age 55.

After that I couldn't bear to watch Washington Journal, it conjured painful images. The aftermath of 9/11 brought me back. I have never called. That is my next step.

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Joe Martin
Oceanside, CA
Cable Company: Cox Communications

You have to be tough to be a C-SPAN junkie when you live in California. First, you have to be able to climb out of a warm bed at 4 a.m. Then, be forced to listen to the other side 50 percent of the time spreading their lies. That not being bad enough, you begin to find out how little you really know about how your government operates. Of course, you don't admit this to anyone; however, you slowly start learning who the important players are and what they are trying to accomplish in their convoluted manner. You can't help but start learning the complex rules the government and courts have to operate under. Soon you're watching hearings and listening to one-minute speeches. Who can forget, "Beam me up Scotty?" About five years into it you discover that the Washington Journal hosts have distinct personalities and you start having your favorites. One night while you're scanning the channels, you discover C-SPAN covering the House live at 11 p.m. PST. They've been at it for 14 hours making you realize the Representatives really do work hard destroying another myth. Next you find yourself secretly admiring some members of the opposing party. The worse is yet to come when you realize how little the average caller knows about their government. You feel like a lost soul when you discover many callers from your own party are wrong. It's a tough job but someone has got to do it.

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