Education on wheels
C-SPAN bus makes stop at Liberty’s campus to talk about political happenings
The latest stop on the C-SPAN bus’ Road to the White House Tour was the same place many of this year’s presidential candidates stopped on their own road to the White House: Liberty University.
The $1.2 million bus, which is 45 feet long and 13 feet high, rolled into the Speakman parking lot next to the bookstore Wednesday, March 2 to promote C-SPAN’s coverage of public policy and the 2016 presidential election. Filled with close to a dozen flat screen televisions, laptops and computers, visitors could watch videos, scroll through C-SPAN’s online content and take trivia quizzes. Sara Zou, a marketing representative for C-SPAN, said the bus is on the road 11 months out of the year.
Inform — Students visited the C-SPAN bus and discussed political coverage. Photo credit: Leah Seavers
“We’re traveling all over,” Zou said. “We’re focusing on the campaign season right now because the campaigns are going on, and we’re going to primary and caucus states. During (non-election years), we’re going to schools and universities. We’re also doing book festivals and other community events, so we do a variety of events around the country.”
The bus features a recording studio where C-SPAN films interviews with senators, representatives, mayors, governors and even presidential candidates. Zou said when Sen. Rand Paul was still in the race, he did a call-in on the network from the bus.
“Wherever we are in the country, there are different elected officials that come on the bus,” Zou said. “When we do productions on the bus, they’re always live.”
Students also had the opportunity to voice their own views on the election. Part of the reason for the bus tour is for C-SPAN to hear about the views of young voters, especially those who are voting for the first time. The network just finished its StudentCam 2016 competition, where students from around the country sent in a video about which topic they believe the candidates should focus on the most.
In addition to trailing the primary and caucus schedule, the bus will also be traveling to the cities of the winners of the contest.
Junior commercial aviation student J.J. McCracken was interviewed in the studio with questions such as which candidate he was supporting, which issues were most critical in this election cycle, and why the right to vote is important. He said that during his tour on the bus he took the time to learn about presidential elections in years past.
“(The electoral college map) was interesting because I didn’t know that independent candidates have had as much of an impact as the map indicated,” McCracken said.
Zou encouraged college students to make use of C-SPAN’s resources, as they have more than 200,000 hours of footage online from the Senate floor and other forums for policy.
“Our purpose is to tell people about C-SPAN and our resources,” Zou said. “When we’re at universities, our goal is to let students know that C-SPAN is available if they need it for a resource for a class, or if they are new voters, C-SPAN is available for them to learn more about the candidates.”
Clarke is a copy editor.