C Span Television Network

No-nonsense C-SPAN may be the closest thing television viewers can get to impartial, straightforward gavel-to-gavel coverage of the official Republican National Convention podium action. But for viewers who worry that even C-SPAN may be distorting the picture, the cable network has a solution: a camera in the C-SPAN control room pointed over the shoulder of the person directing the C-SPAN coverage.

It's 4 a.m. in California and alarm clocks are blaring across the state as a special breed of early risers scrambles out of bed for a morning fix. Yes, it's time for a bit of crack-of-dawn video democracy. C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" show, a serious, early morning chat-fest that has hooked political junkies from coast to coast, begins at the more decent hour of 7 a.m. in the nation's capital.

More than 100 local high school students got a look at how the news is produced Tuesday when the C-SPAN Bus rolled into Newport Beach on its national educational tour. The 45-foot motor coach functions as a mobile television studio, classroom and promotion for the government affairs cable channel. It has been touring the country for a year, visiting campuses nationwide to spark student interest in news and in government.

House Republicans are bitterly contesting a plan by Democrats to cut short the lengthy, late-night floor speeches, televised on C-SPAN, that have become popular as tools to savage political opponents. The dispute over "special order" speeches is a clash between the House's Democratic leaders, flush with their party's presidential victory, and minority Republicans who can no longer count on White House support in their battles. In a recent letter, House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.

To Cypress High School Principal Tracy Brennan, the Friday morning tour of the C-SPAN School Bus was like a trip to a Hollywood movie studio. "The way it's decorated, the cameras, the TV screens and computers--there's so much in there," said a wide-eyed Brennan as she enthusiastically jumped off the bus steps with her students. "It's like going to Disneyland for me."

With the Iowa caucuses just 16 days away, Democratic presidential candidates Bill Bradley and Al Gore are not taking the weekends off. They meet this morning in Johnston, Iowa, for their second debate in four days. CNN and C-SPAN will broadcast the debate live from 11 a.m. to noon PST. MSNBC will air Monday's debate in Grand Rapids, Mich., between the six candidates for the Republican nomination.

Undertaking one of its most ambitious original programming efforts, the C-SPAN cable network will air 32 hours of programming on Vietnam throughout this Memorial Day weekend. C-SPAN calls "Vietnam Revisited" a video journey from Hanoi to the Mekong Delta 17 years after the Vietnam War and the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). It was shot in what C-SPAN calls its "signature video verite " style, at a cost of $35,000.

In his 22 years on television in this mecca of self-promotion, Brian Lamb has not once uttered his own name. In his hourlong interview show "Booknotes" each week, Lamb appears on camera for about four minutes. His guest gets the other 56. And when Capitol Hill's gossipy social season rolls around, Lamb is not among the congressmen, Cabinet secretaries and celebrity journalists who gather to drop names and rub elbows.

C-SPAN executives said Friday that they had been reconsidering how to cover a new book about a libel trial over the Holocaust since author Deborah Lipstadt refused to appear on the air with a British writer who has claimed that Hitler did not order or approve the mass execution of 6 million Jews.

Students at Fred Newhart Middle School, once content to surf past most public affairs programming for music videos, said Monday that a visit from a 45-foot yellow C-SPAN School Bus piqued their interest enough to make them tune in. "I always thought it was like the boring channel, but it's pretty interesting how they do all the interviews on the bus," said Michael Ousbahl, 14.