Obama’s much-publicized usage has both provided a wealth of free advertising for the industry and added to the besmirchment of the speaking aid as a crutch. “I think it is good in that it gets it out there,” says Harris, “but sometimes I think it creates a stigma we have a hard time overcoming.”
Steve Carofalo, general manager at the New York-based prompter company Q-TV, says corporate clients began moving away from using “presidential-style” prompting in the late 1990s, when the stigmatizing first began. For that crowd, he says, Obama’s use and the ensuing conversation around it have further discouraged it…
For every few dozen new clients who are encouraged by Obama’s use of prompters, Graham-White says, he gets a few who express leeriness because of how they’ve interpreted the president’s use. On balance, it’s been good for business, but Graham-White, Harris and others speak of the calamitous possibilities that could arise from a single bad prompting episode.
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