Welcome. I'm Jessica Coons. Here with Steve Scully, Senior Executive Producer and Political Editor for C-SPAN. We also host the Sunday Collin Show Washington Journal. Thank you so much for being here today. Delighted to be back at Edinburgh. Yeah, we love to have you here. Now to get started, we're going to jump right in. Can you talk a little bit about the role of C-SPAN in a politically polarized climate? What is your role of C-SPAN? You know, it's interesting because some have described us as the Switzerland of the media. I think what you're seeing today is a business model with a lot of different news organizations trying to go in a different direction, Fox or MSNBC in the prime time schedule. They said I think all the networks pretty much tried to cover the news straight down the middle. But what our mission is is different. We are the only network of its kind anywhere in the world. Funded completely by the cable industry, we don't have the pressure, the day-to-day pressure of advertising revenue, we don't sell advertising. We have three networks. We have 12 websites that are pretty active. And we have a radio station, heard coast to coast on XM. And what we do is take the events of the day and put them on the air, whether they're live on C-SPAN 1, 2 or 3 or on radio or on our website. And we've got a lot of traffic on our website as well. But we are an events-driven network, we're a public policy network. And our goal is to open up the process, to the House, to the Senate, to the Supreme Court, to government, to politics. And put the events on, let the viewers, the listeners decide what they think about a policy or an issue or a speech. And let the viewers really make up their own minds. We're not out there to tell them what to think. We're out there to try to tell them, here are the issues that people are talking about, here are the events that are making news, here are the hearings that are important, here's what's happening on the House of the Senate floor, and then you can decide. Now you talk about CCAN having an online presence. And given that social media, everyone's online, especially young people. So do you find that young people are being driven more towards looking at politics because it's out there and online? Well, I hope so. I mean, you know, first of all, I think we've seen whether it's John Stewart or the Colbert report, a lot of young people really get interested in politics because they see it on Comedy Central. And I mean that seriously, because if you watch those programs, you might then be interested in following up and finding out, well, what's really the story, what's really happening? And what we have to, we have to go after where the audience is, your generation, those between the ages of 18 to 30 that grew up in this tech savvy society that we have, almost instantly go to Twitter or social media, Facebook or any website. And so we have to be there. And one of the things that we did, which is pretty remarkable as a network, is that we have basically opened up our archives, every event, everything that we've covered since 1987, every speech, every hearing, every interview, it's all online. It is a vast resource. It's a great educational tool. For teachers here at Edinburgh, if they want to assign an interesting project, it would be to go back and document what Mitt Romney said in 1994 when he was running for the US Senate, or try to find the very first appearance by a young state senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, when he appeared in Washington in 1997. And it's all there. No other network allows you to have access to that kind of information, that kind of material that is without commercials, without all the banners, it's right there. And that's part of what we try to do, whether we're tweeting stuff out, that this is happening at a certain time, our live event coverage, or clips of events that we have covered that then draw you back to watch it either on the networks or online. So we're very cognizant of the fact that social media is here. It's growing. It's an important part of our society. It's important for all of us, but especially your generation. And we want to make sure that we, as you're the customer of our product, we want to make sure that you're watching and listening and reading and following what we do. And so we have to make sure that we go to you to let you know what we're doing. Absolutely. Now given that this is an election year, how does C-SPAN's coverage change during an election year? What do you do differently? Well, we began in 1979, and I think the mission of the network from 1979 to 2012 has essentially stayed the same, which is to put the events on the air. What has changed is social media, you talked about just a moment ago, much more focused on live coverage because we have to be live, we want to be relevant. But we are still out there trying to put the entire speech on the air. So you're not going to get just that 10 second clip that you might see on the evening news or a 30 second snippet that might drive some of the cable programs. It will be the entire event. Now we also do a morning show. You mentioned the Washington Journal. We do an afternoon drive time radio program. And so we want to make sure that people who don't have time to watch the entire event can at least get a sense of what's being talked about. So when we pull, for example, a clip of an event, it won't be 10 or 15 seconds. It may be a minute or two or three minutes. So you get the full sense of what the issue happened to be or what the candidate was saying. But for us, I mean, especially with the debates and the conventions, it is our version of the Super Bowl. More people watch CSBAN, I would argue, during a campaign year, because there's heightened interest. Politics is an interesting spectator support. And so we want to make sure that we have the relevant programming on and in a way that is easily accessible. So that's really the big difference. Technology has changed. Live capabilities have changed. We're doing it with smaller cameras. We're able to get inside these events. We're able to have the candidates who are wireless mics. We have the co-FDM cameras. So we can get the bus pulling in outside and then get the candidate inside. So that's allowed us to give a better context of what these events are all about. But in terms of our mission, it has been pretty consistent for the last 30 plus years. Right. Right. Now, you worked at various TV stations before going to CSBAN. I got my start here in Erie. Oh, well, there we go. What advice do you have for young journalists on what to do and maybe what not to do when they're working in the field and they're starting out? Well, the first thing is to do what you're doing. Don't read the questions. Know what you want to ask the person that you're interviewing. And listen to what the person is saying. Bob Sheeper of CBS News tells a great story about an interview he did with a public official. They were talking about Cuba. And in the answer, he was asking about what to do next on Cuba. And he said, well, we want to focus. He said, I think we need to begin an immediate economic embargo and US troops need to move into Cuba tomorrow morning. And his follow-up question was on the embargo. When the story was, wait, you want US troops to move into Cuba. And so the point is, his message was make sure you're listening to what the person is saying. But by far and away, the best piece of advice get internships. The only way you're going to get a job in today's competitive environment is if you've had a chance to work at a channel of 54 or JET or ICU or WSEE or Fox 66 here in Eerie or if you live in Pittsburgh to work at KDKA or the other stations wherever you happen to be from. Spend the summer getting the experience because it will do a couple of things. First of all, it will allow you to sharpen your reporting skills. It will also allow you to see how the pros do it. And it might allow you to decide, well, is this really the profession I want to do? If you're looking for a job in television or in any profession, if you have the experience, your 21, 22 years old, far and away, better chance of getting a job. I would say probably a 90% chance better of getting a job if you've had that experience versus somebody who might have been a great leader on college campuses, might have been popular, but didn't spend the time to get those experiences. And the other thing, and we had a position at CSPEN. We have a lot of different openings, but we had a recent position and it was between several dozen applicants who had sent in their resume and a former intern. Well, guess who we hired? Because we knew who this person was. We knew she could do the job and she understood what we were all about. She fit right in. And that happens everywhere in the workplace. So get the internship, make contacts in this business, and the other thing too, we talk about technology. And technology has changed, but the good story is always there. So well written, well reported, factual, those are the basics. You've got to make sure you do that. And technology is not going to help you with that. Technology is just a means to get the message out to the viewer or the listener or the reader. You still have to make sure as a reporter you're asking the right questions and you're looking for the right story. Some great advice. The fundamentals are still so important. That will never change. Absolutely. Now I do have one last question. Earlier today, you spoke at high school journalism today. And high school journalism day. You mentioned that you weren't sure what the future held after this election. Can you expand on that a little bit? Do you know what's next for you? Oh, for me personally. You know, I don't know. I have been at CSPANL for 20 plus years and it's a great, great place. You never know what opportunities are out there in the future. But for now, as I told the students today, the advantage of what I do at CSPAN is, as a college professor once told me, it sure beats working in a shoe factory. Every day is different. And I have an incredible opportunity to have a front row seat to history. And I love every minute of it. I work with a great group of people. And I'm proud at the end of the day to say I work at CSPANL. I'm proud of the project that we put on and really the respect I think that we have. We have to earn it every day. So for that, it's been an incredible ride and we'll see what happens. Alrighty. Well, thank you so much for being here. We're very excited to have you. Steve Scully, everyone. Thanks for watching. You did a great job.