C-SPAN

Talk of our town: Susan Guyett

How Indiana shaped C-SPAN

October 28, 2005

C-SPAN, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network that provides news without a lot of spin, reflects the style of its founder, Brian Lamb.

"Everything about it is Indiana," Lamb, C-SPAN's president and CEO, said during a visit this week to Indianapolis.

"I learned everything that I do in my life today from people back here that thought enough about me in the early years to let me be myself."

Lamb, a Lafayette native and Purdue grad, was inducted into the Indiana Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame. He's also in the current U.S. News and World Report as one of the country's 25 best leaders.

He paid tribute to other honorees, recited from memory Bouncing Bill Baker's catchphrases from WIBC broadcasts he heard as a kid and joked about being mistaken for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and ex-Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio.

Lamb, who turned 64 on Oct. 4, also confirmed he got married in September for the first time.

The Washington Post and New York Daily News had fun with Lamb's reluctance to give details on the wedding. He did tell Broadcast Pioneers President Paul Lennon he met his wife, Victoria, in first grade in Lafayette.