Brian Lamb

Brian Patrick Lamb (; born October 9, 1941) is an American journalist. He is the founder, executive chairman, and the now-retired CEO of C-SPAN, an American cable network that provides coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate as well as other public affairs events. In 2007, Lamb was awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush and received the National Humanities Medal the following year.

Prior to launching C-SPAN in 1979, Lamb held various communication roles including that of a telecommunications policy staffer for the White House and as the Washington bureau chief for Cablevision magazine. He also served as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy for four years. Lamb has conducted thousands of interviews, including those on C-SPAN's Booknotes and Q&A, where he was known for his unique interview style that focused on short, direct questions.

Early life and education On October 9, 1941, Lamb was born in Lafayette, Indiana, and lived there until he was 22 years old. Growing up, he wanted to be an entertainer and spent time as a disc jockey and as a drummer in many local bands. Lamb showed an early interest in television and radio, starting his first radio job at WASK (AM)—a local station in Lafayette—at the age of 17. His job at the radio station gave him the opportunity to interview musicians including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Count Basie, and The Kingston Trio while he was still in high school. During his junior year at the college in 1961, he coordinated a television program titled Dance Date that was similar to Dick Clark's ABC series, American Bandstand. he attended press briefings with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Following the campaign, he worked as a reporter for UPI Audio and, in 1969, became press secretary for Senator Peter H. Dominick. Afterwards, Lamb became an assistant for media and congressional relations to Clay T. Whitehead, then the director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy.

After the White House, Lamb returned to journalism as the editor of a biweekly newsletter entitled, The Media Report. During this time, he developed his idea of creating a public affairs-oriented cable network.

C-SPAN

In 1977, Lamb submitted a proposal to cable television executives for a nonprofit channel that would broadcast official proceedings of Congress. He later said, "The risks weren't very significant. No one knew who I was. If I failed, so what?"

By 2010, C-SPAN reached over 100 million households, and the network employed 275 individuals in Washington D.C. and at its archives in West Lafayette. Lamb is the former CEO and president of C-SPAN, and now serves as executive chairman of its board of directors. He has described the network as "in every single way, the antithesis of commercial television".

Hosting and interview style

On C-SPAN, Lamb hosted Washington Journal, Booknotes, and continues to host Q&A, According to him, he learned the basics of broadcasting and interviewing from his high school broadcasting teacher, Bill Fraser,

According to The Advocate, his style of interviewing is "Spartan", His first Booknotes interview was broadcast on April 2, 1989, Over the course of the program, Lamb's interviewees included authors, politicians, and world leaders including George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Richard Nixon, Colin Powell, Christopher Hitchens and Margaret Thatcher.

The program's format was described in its tagline, "One author, one book, one hour", and Lamb has stated that he spent an average of 20 hours reading and preparing for each interview,

Lamb published five books based on Booknotes interviews, each a collection of essays written from transcripts of his interviews with authors. The books focus on writing, biographies of figures from American history, American history stories, "American character" and the life of Abraham Lincoln, respectively.

After Booknotes ended, Lamb began hosting a new program titled Q&A, featuring interviews with figures from politics, technology, education, and media, as well as authors. He also continued to host Washington Journal, C-SPAN's morning call-in program, until 2008.

Issues As CEO of C-SPAN, Lamb was involved in issues related to ensuring public access to the proceedings of the federal government and also to increasing media access to legislative and judicial proceedings. Lamb opposed the "must-carry" provisions of the Cable Television Protection and Competition Act of 1992, which he later stated, had led to 10 million Americans losing or experiencing reduced access to C-SPAN. In 1998, he wrote to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, arguing against digital must-carry legislation. During the impeachment of President Clinton, Lamb wrote to then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, urging the Senate to "keep this process open to the public" and formally requesting permission for televised coverage of the Senate's deliberations. In addition, he has written to House Speakers of both parties in 1994, 2006 and 2010, requesting that independent media cameras be added to the House floor to allow a more complete view of debates. Lamb has also written to chief justices Rehnquist and Roberts requesting the televising of oral arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States and other federal courts.

Personal life

Lamb has spent most of his life in Washington, D.C.,

Lamb has never been a member of a political party, though he did work for the Republican Nixon–Agnew campaign in 1968. In an interview Lamb stated he has "been listening to both sides so long that I don't know what I think anymore."

Awards and recognition George W. Bush congratulates Lamb (left) and his wife during the presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lamb has received numerous honors and awards for his work at C-SPAN. He was inducted into the 2000 Cable Hall of Fame at the Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center. Lamb was the recipient of the National Press Club's Fourth Estate Award in 2002. The following year, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal, the Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Award, and The Media Institute's Freedom of Speech Award. the White House announcement stated that Lamb had received the award for his "dedication to a transparent political system and to the free flow of ideas". In September 2011, Lamb received The Lone Sailor award from the U.S. Navy Memorial, recognizing individuals who begin their careers in the Navy, and to have gone on to have had "exceptional civilian careers". and the Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media. In 2011, he was awarded the Gaylord Prize for Excellence in Journalism sponsored by the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma, and was named as one of Library of American Broadcasting's 2011 "Giants of Broadcasting".

Lamb has received multiple honorary doctorates, including one from his alma mater, Purdue University. Purdue also awarded him its Distinguished Alumni Award in 1987, with the university later renaming its communications department as the Brian Lamb School of Communication in 2011. In 2015, Lamb was awarded an honorary doctorate from Gettysburg College. In 1997, Lamb received The Lincoln Forum's Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement.