My wife and I were watching a KBYU broadcast of a speaker using a teleprompter to deliver a talk to students there.  What a remarkable difference there is between an extemporaneous talk, given from the heart, and someone reading a teleprompter. 

 

I think it is high tribute to President Obama that his use of a teleprompter is so casual and conversational that you cannot detect he is reading the comments.  He actually seems to be speaking spontaneously when he uses one.  That is a great gift, unfortunately not shared by many other public speakers. 

 

When a talk is read off a teleprompter and sounds like reading, the speaker sounds insincere, even robotic.  I wonder why we see them used so often anymore, even at BYU Education Week, among small audiences.  When you rob a speaker of spontaneity, you deprive the audience of a connection which might have been made.

 

I can’t read a talk.  I can try, but I always drift off into a conversation and leave the script behind.