Indiana University School of Journalism

Photo by Ben Weller

C-SPAN’s Scott Peterson advised students to "follow the money" to evaluate news coverage.

C-SPAN spokesperson Scott Peterson started his Friday session about presidential candidates’ use of the media and general information about the cable station simple question: What is the point of journalism?

After several students in the 14-person group responded with a similar answer — to provide accurate information to the public — Peterson explained journalism is a business and the goal is to sell a product.

“One thing I notice traveling around the country is that people don’t understand the nature of journalism,” Peterson said. “Anyone getting a job in journalism needs to know that it’s all about money. Follow the money.”

The C-SPAN2 Book TV bus was parked on the south drive of the Indiana Memorial Union from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The bus has been touring the country since 2005 and the Indiana University Press invited C-SPAN2 to visit campus and interview three of its authors. The final component of the C-SPAN2 visit was Peterson’s noon lecture.

In his interactive session, Peterson showed screen shots from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and C-SPAN on the day Saddam Hussein was captured to discuss subliminal messaging in broadcasts and differences between stations.

C-SPAN is a non-profit company with two missions, Peterson said. The first is to be completely neutral in its coverage. The second is to show every press conference, speech, hearing or other political process from beginning to end. According to Peterson, C-SPAN is lucky that it does not have to “play the ratings game” that controls other networks.

Photo by Ben Weller

Peterson showed students around the Book TV bus while visiting campus Friday. He also spoke at Ernie Pyle Hall about presidential elections and internships.

“If we wanted to make money, we would have to glam up politics,” Peterson said. “We have a hard time gaining an audience because people don’t have time to understand the processes. It’s easier to watch a 10-second sound bite. It’s your job as journalists to watch the 47-minute press conference and cut it down to the sound bite.”

The second half of Peterson’s session dealt with how presidential candidates use the media. Peterson showed presidential campaign advertisements, ranging from Eisenhower to Reagan, to illustrate how the issues and tactics in ads are the same today as they were in the 1950s or 1980s.

“As journalists, you need to learn how to utilize these to your advantage and also look through them to see what candidates are really saying,” Peterson said. “It’s harder now that it was before. There is some much clutter now between the Internet and blogs and MySpace.”

Peterson also talked about the station’s Internet resources and Washington, D.C., internships available to students who have at least junior standing.

Freshman and journalism major Rachel Pankiw almost did not go to the lecture; however, she is glad she decided to attend.

“It was in my planner to come to a lecture,” Pankiw said, “but I didn’t know what it was about. I was interested in journalism so I decided just to go and check it out.”

While Pankiw is not an avid C-SPAN viewer, she said she learned to be more aware of the information available to her on TV and online.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Pankiw said. “It was really informative and I realized that there is so much information out there that you need to take advantage of as a journalist.”

 

More:

• Check out C-SPAN’s Book TV Web site.
• Learn more about  C-SPAN’s programming.
• Find out about Indiana University Press authors.

 

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