Lansing - For eight years, Doug Hemmig has been traveling the nation's highways covering politics and preaching the gospel of C-SPAN.
When the C-SPAN Campaign 2008 bus arrived at the state Capitol Thursday as part of its "Road to the White House" tour, Lansing got a sermon.
The tour promoted C-SPAN's coverage of the 2008 presidential race. Aboard the 45-foot mobile production studio, Hemmig explained the channel's philosophy and the role the media plays in government.
"Think of us as a novel as opposed to a short story," Hemmig said. "It's unfiltered, we show things from start to finish. There are no commercials or sound bites. We try to put you at the event."
Created in 1979, C-SPAN is a private, nonprofit company that provides public access to the political process, such as U.S. House of Representatives sessions. It is funded by fees paid by cable companies.
Standing in front of TVs showing footage from a press conference announcing Saddam Hussein's capture, Hemmig pointed to differences in how C-SPAN's coverage differed from other cable news networks.
"From a visual standpoint, there's a lot going on here," Hemmig said, referencing the other news network's coverage. "We're not going to have pictures of Saddam flashing across the screen."
Unlike other stations, which sometimes use multiple camera angles and zoom in on the person speaking, C-SPAN's coverage is bare bones.
"Zooming in tells you when something is important," Hemmig said. "It also adds artificial emotion. We don't want to apply any value judgment to our camera work."
Gary Sebrell, of Lansing, said the presentation changed the way he thinks about news coverage.
"When someone is crying and they zoom in on them, that's not the station I'm going to watch," he said. "It's something I'm going to think about in the campaigns and the interviews."
Stephen Lacy, a journalism professor at MSU, said C-SPAN is a different form of journalism.
"C-SPAN is much more of the raw material of journalism as opposed to someone actually doing the reporting," he said. "It's not really a substitute for what we call journalism, such as network news or CNN."
Maya Mackey, a psychology graduate student, does not always watch C-SPAN. Mackey said she gets her news from National Public Radio because it provides the important news stories and analysis she said she wants.
"I appreciate the spectrum of stories they have," she said. "I like the fact that it's public and not corporate. I feel like it's honest."
Mackey said the only time she watches C-SPAN is when a topic she cares about deeply is being covered.
"It serves a purpose because it keeps things in the public eye," she said.
Torreano Merriweather traveled to Lansing from Detroit with 147 members of a youth mentoring program run by the Michigan Department of Transportation. He toured the bus, and said the visit reinforced the importance of being informed.
"Everything that goes on in the state, it affects me and my family in some sort of way, so I have to vote and make the right choice," he said.
The bus even lured lawmakers out of the Capitol Building.
Rep. Steve Bieda, D-Warren, caught a quick tour of the bus before heading into the Capitol Building to watch Gov. Jennifer Granholm sign the Michigan Business Tax into law.
"I feel a lot of people have the notion of the American public as being apathetic, but I think it's just the opposite," he said.
"The reaction we're getting from the crowd is that people do care about the country and their government."
