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Theresa Rusho
Brighton, Massachusetts
Cable Company: Comcast

3/02/04: WASHINGTON, DC

The decision still puzzles me. No, not my choice to focus on C-SPAN in an editorial cartoon I drew for a newspaper contest in 1988, in which a mohawked (hey, it was the '80s!) teenager chooses a congressional hearing over MTV. This certainly perplexed some of the C-SPAN staff members who learned of my winning entry and called my school to interview me for their in-house newspaper, asking why a fourteen-year old eighth grader would select C-SPAN as an MTV alternative. The answer to that inquiry was less than profound—one network followed the other on my channel lineup at the time, and the two seemed perfect contrasts—but no one asked the question that now seems so obvious: why had I separated the two panels with a dotted line?

My high school interest in media eventually led to a college internship at, ironically enough, MTV. By the time I had arrived at the network, I started to see the importance of that dotted line: politics and youth were not two separate entities. The spaces between are where history has been made: then Gen X vote in 1992, the internet in 2000, watching the Jefferson Jackson dinner on C-SPAN last November and seeing the sea of young people in the bleachers. And as I now watch the latest Democratic debate on C-SPAN while preparing for the Dean social events I currently organize (www.gamesfordean.org—childhood inspired!), I think what I thought fifteen years ago- this is the good stuff.


ONLINE PRESS KIT >>

Contest Winners
Read the essays of the 25 contest winners.

Press Releases
Sep. 28, 2005 -- Winners Named in C-SPAN Viewer Essay Contest Marking 25 Years of Viewer Calls

Sep. 14, 2005 -- C-SPAN Marks 25 Years Of Viewer Calls-Ins With LIVE, 25-Hour Call-In Program On Oct. 7

Aug. 17, 2005 -- C-SPAN Marks 25 Years Of Viewer Calls-Ins With LIVE, 25-Hour Call-In Program On Oct. 7

News Articles
The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) - Oct. 10, 2005
Talkers Magazine - Cover Story Oct. 2005
Jewish World Review - Columnist David Brooks, Nov. 1999

History of Call-Ins on Radio and Television
A timeline of call-in programs

Evolution of Call-Ins on C-SPAN
A timeline of call-in programs at C-SPAN

More about C-SPAN's 25 Years of Viewer Call-Ins
Background information on C-SPAN call-in programs

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