I just heard the news from Copenhagen, and it contains an almost unbelievable tidbit of information: the members of the International Olympic Committee were watching a man read text from a teleprompter. Can that be true? Has that ever happened before?
If you are trying to persuade a relatively small number of people, would you not speak with them directly, and from the heart? How insulting is it to bring two TelePrompters into the room and swivel your head back and forth between them as you read someone else's text while never looking at your listeners?
The purported advantage of a TelePrompter is that it allows an unprepared TV performer to seem like he knows what he is doing. An actor who can read a text with seeming conviction can use a TelePrompter as intended. The stage hands standing around in the television studio see what is happening and have no respect for the text-reader, but the desired effect is intended not for them, but for the people watching on TV, who are not supposed to even be aware that a TelePrompter is being used.
Alas, our President reads text from a TelePrompter in such a stilted way that he is not even competent to fool a TV audience, who see him swiveling his head left and right, never looking into the camera. Did President Reagan do it like this?
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 