Brian Lamb

In his three-hour interview, C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb looks back at his early years as a local disc jockey in Indiana and at his time hosting a local program called Dance Date in the early 1960s. He describes his years in the navy, where he was assigned to both the Pentagon and the Lyndon B. Johnson White House, and explains how news coverage at the time affected his worldview and planted the seed idea for C-SPAN. He recalls his role in Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, his time as Senator Peter Dominick's press secretary, and having a front seat during the Watergate scandal in the Nixon White House Office of Telecommunications. Lamb then outlines the creation of C-SPAN, his struggle to get funding, and how he came up with the idea of broadcasting congressional sessions. He discusses his philosophy of running C-SPAN, the lack of advertising and marketing for the channel, and its place in the political landscape. He also outlines the creation of C-SPAN 2 and C-SPAN 3, speaks of his role hosting Book Notes and Q&A, and describes what he hopes C-SPAN will be in the future. Karen Herman conducted the interview on November 18, 2011 at C-SPAN headquarters in Washington, D.C.