AJC.com > Opinion > Opinion Talk > Archives > 2008 > September > 05
Friday, September 5, 2008
Should candidates write own speeches?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An opinion columnist writes in today’s AJC:
“Today, selling term papers to students to use as their own is still illegal, but selling speeches to politicians to use as their own remains legitimate. How can that be?
“The fact that the writers give permission to the speakers to pretend it’s their own work does not make it okay.
“Nor can second-party speechwriting be justified because it isn’t journalism or scholastic scholarship. Some speechwriters have likened their profession to screenwriting, penning dialogue to be spoken by others. But in the entertainment world, the audience knows the actors don’t write their own material, and authors are acknowledged in screen credits or theater programs.
“When was the last time you saw or heard a writer credited at the end of a speech by John McCain or Barack Obama?
“Nor can the difference be that political audiences are already aware that politicians employ speechwriters. Granted, it can be easy to determine when President Bush is reciting from someone else’s script and when he is ad libbing in his own fractured English. But how can we know whether a line, or an entire speech, comes from the brains of McCain or Obama, or from hired staffers?”
Should politicians write their own speeches?
Read the full opinion column by David McGrath
Permalink | Comments (30) | Categories: Forum
