WisconsinEye: Fair and balanced?
7:10 PM 10/30/03

Professional, dignified and non-partisan? Expect a lot of dead air on WisconsinEye. <

The state Department of Administration issued 15 pages of requirements this week that must be met before the proposed public affairs network can broadcast coverage of legislative action in Madison. <

State officials don't want folks to see anything but their talking heads - at a suitable distance, of course. After all, there'd be nothing more frightening than to tune in to Wisconsin Eye on Halloween and see Rep. Glenn Grothman frothin' in extreme closeup. <

Rather than genuine gavel-to-gavel "you are there" coverage of the chambers, lawmakers want to write, direct and star in a show of sanitized statesmanship. WisconsinEye would have to "record and cover the actions of legislators as such actions are intended to unfold by the Legislature." Yikes, that's a tall order: Determining legislative intent is a task usually best left to the courts. <

The rules say committee chairmen will decide who gets screen time. There will be no special effects like split or modified screens. And most of all, the rules ban "arbitrary reaction shots" - cutaways of lawmakers rolling their eyes, or worse, catching a nap during colleagues' diatribes, er, collegial debates. <

But the fundamental question is this: How can the proposed C-SPAN-like WisconsinEye channel claim to cover the inner workings of state government if, as required, it airs only "professional, dignified and nonpartisan" activity? With incivility entrenched in both the Senate and Assembly, such a station would have to rename itself The Fantasy Channel. <

There's quite a gap between how lawmakers would like to portray themselves, and how they actually behave in the chambers. That's why it makes sense to let the camera's unblinking eye rove without restriction. Lawmakers caught in the limelight will clean up their acts for the folks at home. And if things get out of hand anyway, shameless Sen. Tim Carpenter can rush up and snatch away the microphone. <