The new, remodeled CSPAN bus stopped by campus on Tuesday to show its coverage of candidate events, town hall meetings and the current Republican Party debates.
“We’re [taking] this bus across the country right now on the road to the White House tour to promote who CSPAN is, how we’re funded and what we cover on our three networks,” Jennifer Curran, CSPAN’s marketing representative, said.
Students were able to walk into the bus and take a tour of CSPAN’s multimedia demonstrations.
The tour bus included four touch-screen kiosks, recently covered events on HD monitors, MacBook laptops for students to connect with CSPAN through Facebook and Twitter, and a smart board in the back to show students the video library on CSPAN’s online archives.
“The very first bus was called the ‘CSPAN School Bus’ [and] it was bright yellow … This is more of a demonstration center now [to show] CSPAN is for the House of Representatives and CSPAN II is for the Senate,” Matthew S. McGuire, national account executive, said.
The new bus’ theme this year is “Campaign 2012,” and covered the campaign event in Illinois live as the votes came in.
“I was walking to class and saw the bus and decided to check it out,” said Ben Novotny, a junior journalism major. “I think it’s really cool, I think if [CSPAN] scheduled it more in advance, if they did more to announce it with posters and flyers, I think more students would have come to check it out, because it’s important for students to get involved.”