After covering the 14 votes to elect House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, C-SPAN sent a letter to new McCarthy to ask if C-Span could cover all House floor proceedings for all credited news outlets. Usually, footage of the proceedings are government-produced unless there are special events such as the election of the speaker. (CNN, January 10, 2023, by Oliver Darcy)
The Washington Post editorial board, January 13, 2023, argues that the usual government coverage is dull while the coverage of the speaker vote by C-SPAN provided the public with interesting sidebars including a near fight, bipartisan conversations, and McCarthy and his team working the holdouts. The board says it is not about ratings since Nielsen doesn’t rate C-SPAN but “about giving the nation a more accurate view of how Congress really works — and often doesn’t.”