Super Bowl 50. It has a nice ring to it. It’s the culmination of not only another grueling NFL season filled with highs, lows, hits, and wins, but of the immense efforts of both individuals and of teams. The Super Bowl is the best of the best versus the best of the best and over the last fifty years has earned its place (though unofficially) as an American holiday.
But it’s not the only such paramount event happening this week. There’s another peak grueling battle that Americans are intensely focused on. It’s the New Hampshire Primary and for Democracy lovers and political wonks alike, it’s bigger than any Super Bowl. It’s the first quarter of another election season, setting the posture for not just how America will be governed, but how the world will interact for the next four years.
NCTA is sending a team up to New Hampshire to document one of the most important elements of the New Hampshire primary: How it’s covered. C-SPAN has been generous enough to open their doors to us, giving us access to not only their live production process, but their marketing and voter outreach programs in New Hampshire. For the last 35 years (making this their 9th election season), C-SPAN has been covering politics like no one else in cable. Coining the term “gavel-to-gavel,” since 1979 C-SPAN has stood as a hallmark of transparency in Democracy. Without C-SPAN, we would have never had a direct, unfettered window into the watershed moments that have defined politics for the last three decades.
As the Internet has redefined media, C-SPAN has served as perhaps the defining digital archive of our government with an online catalogue offering over 200,000 hours of historic content with everything from hearings to presidential debates.
We’re thrilled to be able to join C-SPAN as they cover the New Hampshire Primary, starting this Sunday all the way through to election day. Look to this blog for insights, interviews, and stories from the road. Plus, we’ll be tweeting (@NCTACable) and Facebooking the whole time, so jump into the conversation and let us know what you think.