C-SPAN moment..

C-SPAN's viral video moment

By Hadas Gold

That was definitely not your father’s C-SPAN.

Wednesday’s dramatic protest on the House floor over gun control was a powerful reminder of how dramatically the cable network’s role as the official chronicler of Congress has changed since its early years — and how technology has suddenly made C-SPAN less beholden to the congressional leaders who control its video feed inside the chambers.

It all unfolded quickly: When the sit-in began Wednesday morning, Republican leaders ordered the House into recess. And since only they, and not C-SPAN, oversee the camera, C-SPAN’s feed was cut off, as dictated by the chamber’s rules.

Normally, that would have been end of story.

But in a move that would not have been possible even five years ago, C-SPAN picked up a live video feed from a lawmaker recording the sit-in from inside the chamber — doing an end-run around House leaders.

The video feed — and the power to control it — was once a real lever of power in Congress. As a newcomer to the House in 1979 looking to make a name for himself, Newt Gingrich used C-SPAN, which had just launched months earlier, to full effect, regularly blasting Democrats before the budding audience of cable subscribers. Five years later, after Gingrich accused Democrats of being “blind to communism,” House Speaker Tip O’Neill used C-SPAN to exact revenge, ordering the House cameras to pan across an empty chamber as one Republican lawmaker was making a speech.

Congress’ tight control over what its viewers see has long been a source of frustration for C-SPAN, which has been trying to get its own cameras on the floor of since 1984. But congressional leaders, whether Democratic or Republican, have maintained power over the cameras, the audio, the angles and when they’re turned on and off.

That all changed on Wednesday afternoon, when members of Congress themselves became the cameras, using their smartphones to broadcast the sit-in live directly to C-SPAN after the network’s access to video feeds from the House floor was cut, despite the fact there were dozens of Democratic lawmakers still there, making speeches and making news.

Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) blasted the move, calling it a “publicity stunt.” His spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said that because the House had gone into recess, the feed had to go. Rules are rules.

But C-SPAN soon found a way around those rules.

“This is a milestone moment,” said C-SPAN spokesman Howard Mortman, who said he was inundated with calls and interest on Wednesday. “We’ve got a commitment to C-SPAN as a public service, a privately funded public service to connect Americans to Congress to show what's happening in Congress … this certainly rises to the event of something happening in Congress."

With the cameras turned off, C-SPAN began broadcasting a Periscope livestream of the floor from Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), with the full graphics afforded to normal video feeds of the House floor. The network also switched at times to a Facebook Live feed from Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) and others. All three cable networks also picked up on portions of the livestream, but C-SPAN carried it for the entire duration and continues to do so as of this publishing.

"Cameras in chamber controlled by house. House is currently in recess subject to call. House cameras are not permitted to show sit-in," read the "Alert" on the bottom of C-SPAN’s shot explaining the situation.

Peters, speaking just off the House floor on an aide’s phone while his own kept up the broadcast, told POLITICO the idea for the livestream came from a young aide, who texted him the suggestions. Having never used the services before, Peters said he downloaded the Periscope app from the House floor and began broadcasting.

Technically, it’s against House rules to film from the House floor. But Peters said the sit-in was breaking the rules anyway, so he figured he’d keep going.

“This is a protest. If Rep. John Lewis is going to sit on the House floor, that’s against the rules, so I thought it’s better for people to know about it,” Peters said. “I think it’s appropriate as part of a protest. I really respect the rules of the House and don’t expect to break them, but today I think it’s appropriate for the American people to know what the heck is going on."

About six phones were livestreaming at a time, Peters guessed. At one point, he said, CBS called trying to connect to his feed.

The attention is vital to keeping up the sit-in, Peters said: “If no one were watching or knew we were here, it would be more difficult to sustain. We don’t have a filibuster mechanism that keeps the House open. We’re technically in adjournment so it’s really the only way for us to make a point."

In the past, lawmakers hoping to pull off similar stunts would have been out of luck. In 2008, when they were in power, Democrats recessed and even cut power when a group of Republican lawmakers, led by then-Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) opposed a motion to adjourn the House, arguing that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's refusal to schedule a vote allowing offshore drilling was hurting the American economy. They refused to leave the floor for five hours, but the only way the protest was broadcast was via reporters observing from the press galleries.

“It’s always a big misunderstanding. People think we’re in charge of the cameras but we’re not, we’re not the government,” C-SPAN’s Mortman said. “This is an opportunity to explain how we operate and how TV gets from the House floor into American households. This is a great moment.”

Both Twitter and Facebook have invested heavily in Capitol Hill, dedicating staff members to training members of Congress on how to use their competing livestream features. Twitter featured the sit-in as a “Twitter Moment,” Periscope (which is owned by Twitter) dedicated a channel to it, and Facebook featured livestreams of the sit-in in its trending box with a red “LIVE” button.

"Today is an example of what drives us. Twitter and Periscope take you where other cameras don't — letting you experience breaking news through the eyes of those living it,” Periscope co-founder and CEO Kayvon Beykpour said in a statement.

Twitter and Facebook are extremely eager — as is Google, owner of YouTube — to capitalize on the enormous interest in the 2016 campaign because it validates their claims that they are the “townhall” where modern American politics is playing out.

But good government and transparency aren't the only motives — the social-media giants are in a battle to the death over their respective livestreaming platforms, seeing the technology as a way to compete with TV networks for eyeballs and advertising dollars. Facebook Live is such a priority for the company that it is paying around $50 million to media companies and celebrities to use the product, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

In a dig at Facebook, Twitter spokesmman Nick Pacilio shared the Journal’s report on Wednesday, reminding followers “we're not paying anyone to use Periscope.” He later noted that tweets sent by Peters and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) with videos had been viewed more than a million times each.

“We may not have Chewbacca, but we have democracy,” tweeted Beykpour, in a reference to a viral Facebook Live video of a woman laughing as she wore a mask of the Star Wars character. (That video has been viewed 157 million times.)

Facebook declined to respond to Twitter’s taunts.

As of 7:30 p.m. Wednesday evening, the sit-in and the livestreaming were still going, with no clear end in sight.