Tag: oral delivery

Triumph of the TelePrompTerTM: What has it done to public speaking?

Why do people vote for a Presidential candidate who has plagiarized all his life and has as much originality and authenticity as the guy in the picture?

 

Here comes the orator, with his flood of words and his drop of reason.
Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1735

[Disclaimers: I am not a conservative, a Republican, or a supporter of Donald Trump.  This is about the relationship of a speaker to his speech.]

The ubiquitous double screen has triumphed in Presidential politics. We now have a candidate who is totally reliant on script, whose public speaking skills do not enable him to compose and deliver an organized, coherent 30-second answer to a substantive or policy question.