Are there blogs written by professional speechwriters?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, there are a few blogs written by professional speechwriters. I’ll list eight of them by their author’s names in alphabetical order, along with a sample post.

 

[Dr.] Sam Cooper just uses his name. He has a post on February 4, 2019 titled Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow: a treasure trove of tips for speechwriters and speakers.

 

Charles Fleming has a blog titled Expression/Impression. He has a post on October 11, 2021 titled Keynote speeches: tips from politicians.

 

Patricia Fripp uses her last name for her web site and blog. On May 26, 2023 she has a post titled The best way to craft and deliver an engaging speech about yourself.

 

Brian Jenner has a blog titled The Speechwriter. He has a post on October 28, 2022 titled My ten favourite insights into writing. Brian also founded the European Speechwriter Network.

 

Nick Morgan has a web site titled Public Words, with a blog. On May 2, 2023 there is a blog post titled How to write an unforgettable speech.

 

David Murray has a blog titled Writing Boots, and subtitled On communication, professional and otherwise. His web site is ProRhetoric; David runs the Professional Speechwriters Association and edits the magazine Vital Speeches of the Day. He has a post on July 22, 2015 titled What makes great speeches: serious and charming people who tackle important questions with utter conviction. (Right?)

 

Eddie Rice has a web site called Rice Speechwriting, with a blog. There is a post on June 2, 2022 titled Honoring others: 7 prompts for what to say for rank promotions, awards, and ceremonies.

 

Anthony Trendl has a web site titled American Speechwriter with a  blog titled Looking Up from the Typewriter. He has a post on March 16, 2023 titled Speech Tip: Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! (Speeches Aren’t Safe).

 

Back on July 20, 2010 there is an article by Cynthia J. Sparks at ProRhetoric titled Speechwriters who blog tell exactly why they do it.

 

The cartoon of a speechwriter was adapted from one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

A hollow mission statement from the Idaho Dispatch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 1, 2022 there was an article by Sarah Clendenon at the Idaho Dispatch titled Major Announcement for the Idaho Dispatch which began:

 

“New and exciting things are happening at the Idaho Dispatch!

 

Greg Pruett, who started and established The Idaho Dispatch, has now sold the company to Miste Karlfeldt.

 

Miste is a native Idahoan and an entrepreneur. She is married to Dr. Michael Karlfeldt and the mother of four exceptional children. She founded a statewide non-profit organization and has successfully run it for six years with a passionate team of volunteers. Miste’s commitment to the First Amendment and her love for Idaho drives her desire to purchase the Idaho Dispatch.”

 

On April 24, 2023 the Idaho Dispatch had an another article titled Press Release: Idaho Dispatch Owner Miste Karlfeldt Announces New Mission Statement, which claimed:

 

“Idaho Dispatch is a non-partisan, independent, unbiased news source designed to be your local media ally in Idaho. In stark contrast to legacy media, our mission is to bring you political news that offers both sides of the story. Stories that corporate media often refuse to cover find their way into print at Idaho Dispatch.”

 

But her activities belie claims that site could either be non-partisan or unbiased. Under her maiden name of Miste Gardener, she ran for Idaho State Controller in a November 2022 election, representing the Constitution Party. She came in third behind Brandon Woolf (Republican, and incumbent): 69.5%, Dianna David (Democrat): 26.9%, Miste Gardener (Constitution) 3.7%.

 

An article by Kelcie Moseley-Morris at the Idaho Capital Sun on October 31, 2022 titled Idaho controller says he will continue transparency efforts if re-elected described her and her campaign:

 

“Miste Gardner is running as a Constitution Party candidate, but has not raised or spent any funds since declaring her candidacy in March. Gardner, who also uses the last name Karlfeldt, leads Health Freedom Idaho, a group that protests public health measures and vaccines. She owns the website Idaho Dispatch.”

 

Is Sarah Clendenon non-partisan? Hardly! She also ran as a Constitution Party candidate in the 2022 general election, for Idaho State Senate District 15. She came in third behind Rick Just (Democrat) 49.8%, Codi Galloway (Republican) 48.0%, Sarah Clendenon (Constitution Party) 2.2%.

 

The mission web page for Health Freedom Idaho says Miste Karlfeldt is their Executive Director. It has an image of her and her husband, Dr. Michael Karlfeldt. He is a naturopathic doctor who runs The Karlfeldt Center in Meridian, Idaho. An article by Dustin Hurst at the Idaho Freedom Foundation on March 9, 2015 titled After battling excruciating pain, single mom fights for her healer at the Capitol discusses efforts to license naturopaths. And on May 21, 2023 there was an article in the Idaho Dispatch titled Featured Advertiser: Michael Karlfeldt, The Karlfeldt Center.

 

The Wikipedia page about Health Freedom Idaho which has 35 references (part of a series about Alternative Medicine), succinctly describes it as:

 

“an anti-vaccine group that also opposes health regulations, such as mask requirements and restrictions on the operation of businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

  

Back on October 29, 2021 Health Freedom Idaho had a whining article titled How Our Wikipedia SHOULD Read.

 

I tried looking for background on Miste at LinkedIn. A page for Miste Gardener just lists her as owner since June 2006 of Prestige Property Management (and a realtor) in Eagle, Idaho. It doesn’t mention her education. She has another web site titled MISTE4LIBERTY.

 

A more recent article by Sarah Clendenon at the Idaho Dispatch on May 13, 2023 is titled Idaho – who controls the information you’re receiving? That question also should be applied to the Idaho Dispatch.

 

The image of a hollow cube came from here at Openclipart.

 

A mission statement for a Toastmasters club

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A mission statement describes where an organization is pointed. At the beginning of each meeting of Pioneer Club in Boise a member is asked to read the following succinct mission statement (which is printed at the top of our meeting agenda):

 

“We provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.”

 

That’s a good reminder of what our club is about. I got curious regarding where it came from, and looked around. It came directly from page 7 of the current 31-page Toastmasters International Abridged Brand Manual, which you can download here.

 

That manual also has three versions for an Elevator Pitch: 50-word (one minute), 100-word (three-minute) and 250-word (five minute). The 50-word version says:

 

“Since 1924, Toastmasters International has been recognized as the leading organization dedicated to communication and leadership skill development. Through its worldwide network of clubs, each week Toastmasters helps more than a quarter million men and women of every ethnicity, education level and profession build their competence in communication so they can gain the confidence to lead others.”

 

Many mission statements and elevator pitches are mediocre or less. Back on March 2, 2009 I blogged about A “whipped topping” elevator speech: What the heck do you guys really do?

 

The arrow image came from here at Openclipart.

 

The Art & Science of Original Oratory: a free e-book on public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you were looking for a free e-book about public speaking (and debate), then I just found one you could download. It is the 111-page 2021 updated .pdf edition of The Art & Science of Original Oratory by Ashley Mack, which can be found at the web site for the National Speech & Debate Association.

 

I found it via a Google phrase search including “filetype:pdf”. But curiously it doesn’t seem to be on their Resources page for Coaching Speech.

 

This e-book has 13 examples. You can look at an abstractive summary of it by Augusto Frederico at Medium on June 27, 2018.

 

Silhouettes of two people arguing were adapted from an image at Openclipart.

 

Dr. David Gorski is fighting for science-based medicine and against nonsense

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling at The New Republic on February 28, 2023 titled A Doctor’s War Against the Right-Wing Medical-Freedom Movement. It is about Dr. David Gorski, whose long-running blog is titled Respectful Insolence. He also is the Managing Editor of the Science-Based Medicine web site. Dr. Gorski blogged about that magazine article on March 2, 2023 in a post titled The New Republic on a two decade war against medical quackery.

 

I ran across his blog when I was trying to make sense of dubious information about COVID-19. Then I blogged about him in a post on March 24, 2020 titled Phony coronavirus remedies, a post on April 8, 2020 titled Going on a wild goose chase by treating coronavirus with an unproven malaria drug, a post on May 4, 2020 titled Sifting through misinformation, and a post on May 23, 2020 titled Simplified images either can clarify or confuse.

 

Dr. Gorski writes long, detailed posts and articles, which include lots of medical terminology. I admire and often read (or just skim) his writings. He is excellent in explaining why things do or do not make sense. For example, an article on March 20, 2023 titled Ivermectin is now fast becoming the new MMS explains:

 

“As I’ve written many times before, despite its ability to inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, in cell culture, well-designed randomized clinical trials have failed to find any efficacy for the drug. There’s a reason why I’ve referred to ivermectin as the acupuncture of COVID-19 treatments because of its extreme implausibility based on basic science alone. The reason for that implausibility is that the concentration required to inhibit viral growth in vitro is 50- to 100-fold higher than what can be safely achieved in humans, meaning that, from strictly a pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics standpoint, ivermectin was always a highly implausible treatment for COVID-19.”

 

Another article on May 22, 2023 titled Evidence-based medicine vs. basic science in medical school discusses randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and homeopathy as follows:

 

“As I like to ask: Which of the following is more likely, that a 30C homeopathic solution of…something…that has been diluted on the order of 10³⁷-fold more than Avogadro’s number and thus is incredibly unlikely to contain even a single molecule of that something has a therapeutic effect or that the RCTs concluding that it does reveal the problems and biases in clinical trials? As I also like to say, given the usual p-value of 0.05 designated for ‘statistically significant’ findings, under ideal circumstances, with perfectly designed and executed RCTs, by random chance alone 5% of these RCTs will be ‘positive.’ Of course, in the real world, RCTs are not perfect, either in design or execution, and the number of ‘false positives’ is therefore likely considerably higher than 5%. Yet, basic science alone tells us that a 30C homeopathic remedy is indistinguishable from the water used to dilute it, which means a placebo-controlled RCT is testing placebo versus placebo and ‘positive’ results show us nothing more than the noise inherent in doing RCTs.”

 

The image of a boxer was modified from this one at the Library of Congress.

 

The Idaho Freedom Foundation isn’t a credible source of information about topics like entheogens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An entheogen is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as:

 

“a psychoactive, hallucinogenic substance or preparation (such as psilocybin or ayahuasca) especially when derived from plants or fungi and used in religious, spiritual, or ritualistic contexts.”

 

I never would expect to find credible information about them at the web site for a conservative political organization. But an article by Wayne Hoffman at the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) on May 15, 2023 titled Time to reconsider Idaho’s involvement in Medicaid has this gem near the end:

 

“Medicaid, like much of the medical-industrial complex, refuses to acknowledge the therapeutic value of improved nutrition, exercise, and human interaction. And because Medicaid is controlled by the medical-industrial complex, entheogens and other earth-based medicines and treatment modalities are completely off the table, despite having been demonstrated to help with an array of conditions.” 

 

Two of those links, for demonstrated and conditions are about ayahuasca, which according to Wikipedia is:

 

“… a South American psychoactive and entheogenic brewed drink traditionally used both socially and as a ceremonial or shamanic spiritual medicine among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin, and more recently in North America and Europe.”

 

The second link (for conditions) is to an article from 2013 at PubMed Central titled Ayahuasca and cancer treatment. The bottom line is that it has not been demonstrated to help. The last paragraph begins:

 

“In conclusion, the data available so far is not sufficient to claim whether ayahuasca indeed helps in cancer treatment or not.”

 

What about side effects? Another article at PubMed Central from November 2022 is titled Adverse effects of ayahuasca: Results from the Global Ayahuasca Survey. It looked at 10,836 people, with the following results:

 

“Acute physical health adverse effects (primarily vomiting) were reported by 69.9% of the sample, with 2.3% reporting the need for subsequent medical attention. Adverse mental health effects in the weeks or months following consumption were reported by 55.9% of the sample, however, around 88% considered such mental health effects as part of a positive process of growth or integration. Around 12% sought professional support for these effects.”

 

Acute adverse effects for 70% of users is awful. You just might choke on your vomit and die, like Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham did.

 

Back in October 2022 the About web page for IFF used to list surgeon Dr. John M. Livingston as their Medical Policy Adviser, but it does not currently. The only person now listed with some medical background is their Policy Analyst, Niklas Kleinworth, who had a minor in pre-health professions studies.

 

An image of a shaman mask from Wellcome at Wikimedia Commons was modified via Photoshop.

 

A practical process for writing any speech – from the Professional Speechwriters Association

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a twelve-page article (a PSA whitepaper) by Michael Long at the Professional Speechwriters Association (PSA) titled One Step at a Time: A Practical Process for Writing Any Speech. It briefly describes and then discusses the following six steps:

 

Step 1: Assess the event and the speaker

Step 2: Create a spec sheet

Step 3: Identify the big ideas and put them in order

Step 4: Add evidence

Step 5: Write the open and the end

Step 6: Make it better [polish everything]

 

There is another ten-page article (also a PSA whitepaper) by David Murray titled Speechwriting, FAQ (and subtitled Honest answers to the ten toughest questions communicators {and their bosses} ask about creating compelling speeches and presentations).

 

There also is an 18-page pdf version of an article (another a PSA whitepaper) by Boe Workman titled Writers of the Lost Art: “Rhetorical Perspective,” and the Future of Speechwriting, which I had previously discussed in a post on January 23, 2023 titled What is the future of speechwriting? I found them all at the PSA Resources web page.

 

The cartoon image of a woman came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Peloton recalled over two million exercise bikes to replace their seat posts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you watch television, then you have encountered ads for the fancy Peloton PL01 exercise bicycle (shown above), which sells for $1445. An article at the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on May 11, 2023 is titled Peloton recalls two million exercise bikes due to fall and injury hazards. A Peloton web page titled Peloton Original Bike Recall and Free Seat Post Repair explains:

 

“The original Peloton Bike seat post can break unexpectedly during use, creating a potential fall and injury risk. Peloton has identified 35 reports of seat posts breaking out of 2,160,000 units sold in the US. There have been 13 reports of injuries, including a wrist fracture, lacerations and bruises.”

 

Another article at DC Rainmaker on May 12, 2023 titled Peloton’s seatpost recall, Zwift’s curious steering rebirth, and GoPro price drop described the problem:

 

“The issue stems from the seat post, specifically the welds. There have been sporadic reports on Peloton Facebook and Reddit groups over the years of the seatpost snapping or separating during use.”

 

An arrow in the image shown above indicates the L-shaped seat post, which consists of two oval-shaped tubes connected by an elbow. The post can easily be replaced by the bicycle owner.

 

Yet another article at Reuters on May 11, 2023 titled Peloton recalls 2.2 million exercise bikes over seat issue describes the financial impact:

 

“During the January to March quarter, Peloton said it had accrued $8.4 million as an estimated expense related to ‘voluntary corrective action plan’ involving the defect.”

 

Still another article by Edward Segal at Forbes on May 16, 2023 is titled How product recalls can create a crisis for companies. This recall is a potential crisis because of the huge number of products, and parts which needed to be stockpiled before announcing it. There have been other CPSC recalls involving seat posts, like for Faraday electric bicycles on July 2, 2019 titled Electric bicycles recalled by Faraday; seat post poses fall hazard, But that recall involved just 4,450 bicycles – 485 times fewer than Peloton.

 

Failure analysis of a product typically involves an attempt to isolate the defect to a problem that occurred at a specific time period. Apparently due to the small number of broken seat posts Peloton was not able to localize a time, and had to recall all of them.

 

In early 2022 another problem with bicycles at Peloton was reported. An article by Patrick McGee at Ars Technica (from the Financial Times) on February 22, 2022 is titled Inside “Project Tinman”: Peloton’s plan to conceal rust in its exercise bikes, along with another by Lucas Nolan at Breitbart on February 23, 2022 titled ‘Project Tinman:’ How Peloton planned to conceal rust on its fancy exercise bikes.

 

The image of a Peloton bike came from Wikimedia Commons.    

 

A cartoon with a literal definition for ‘white wash’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I laughed when I read the caption of Tony Carrillo’s F Minus cartoon on May 15, 2023, which has a painter state:

 

“When all they want is a fresh coat of white, our policy is to wash the wall clean and tell them we painted it.”

 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition for the noun, whitewash is:

 

“a liquid composition for whitening a surface: such as a composition (as of lime and water or whiting, size, and water) for whitening structural surfaces.”

 

A well-known literary reference to whitewashing a fence is in Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, as portrayed in this five-minute YouTube video.

 

The image of a man and a house wall was modified from this one at Openclipart.

 

 

Avoid using stilted business jargon words and phrases

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An article by Kathleen Davis at Fast Company on December 12, 2022 titled This is the worst business jargon of 2022 provides a horrible example:

 

“We need to disrupt this with some thought leadership: I want to empower you to think outside the box, let’s blue sky some ideas beyond the low hanging fruit. We need something that will really move the needle. I want to circle back on those ideas that we double clicked on last week and took offline. I think we had a lot of alignment on the ways to create synergy so now we just need to get boots on the ground so we can leverage it. Who has the bandwidth to start growth hacking?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another article by Anna Dobson at Preply on January 3, 2023 titled Business jargon: a survival guide for the office has several tables, four of which are summarized above: ten most and least frequently used, and ten most and least annoying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A third article by Suzanne Lucas at Inc. on May 9, 2023 titled 50 Most annoying business phrases of 2023 revealed has the fifty shown above in a long list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a fourth article by Rob Phillips at Platform Executive, originally on January 28, 2021 and titled The 120 most annoying business phrases and buzzwords of 2022 (updated for 2023) has the even longer list shown above. How many of those words or phrases have you been using?

 

An image of a jester on stilts came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

The Lori Vallow Daybell murder trial media circus finally is over

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday we finally got the guilty verdicts in the Lori Vallow Daybell murder trial held at the Ada County Courthouse here in Boise. It had run for six weeks and been a media circus that involved sixty witnesses testifying. The prosecution closed with the same theme they had started with – Money, Power, and Sex – which could have been the title for a long Russian novel – maybe the sequel to War and Peace.

 

An article by Rebecca Boone at AP News on May 13, 2023 is titled Doomsday plot: Idaho jury convicts woman in murders of 2 children, romantic rival. A previous article on May 11, 2023 is titled A look at who’s who in the murder trial of slain kids’ mom, and one on April 1, 2023 is titled Doomsday plot? After 3 years, slain kids’ mom to stand trial. The May 13 article described defense claims not found credible by the jury:

 

“Defense attorney Jim Archibald countered that there was no evidence tying his client to the killings, but plenty showing she was a loving, protective mother whose life took a sharp turn when she met her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, and fell for the ‘weird’ apocalyptic religious claims of a cult leader. He suggested that Daybell and Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, were responsible for the deaths.”

 

This trial was extensively covered by both local TV (KTVB7 and 2IdahoNews) and national TV, but without cameras in the courtroom, except for reading of the verdict. But later there will be another trial of her husband, Chad Daybell. At various times it looked like either he would be tried first, or they would be tried together, or she would be found not competent for trial.

 

The circus tent cartoon was modified from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Importance of a previous context for music

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few days I heard a radio ad for the 2023 Boise Fourth of July Parade. For background music they used John Philip Sousa’s 1893 stirring march, The Liberty Bell. I suspect the producer wasn’t old enough to know about a previous association for that tune. It had been used in the opening for Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the BBC sketch comedy TV series (1969 to 1974), which you can watch on YouTube here or here.

 

Five decades ago I saw an Air Force Now newsreel film using Edvard Grieg’s 1875 In the Hall of the Mountain King as background music for B-52 bombers taking off. That music was horribly inappropriate. It had previously been used in M, Fritz Lang 1931 mystery suspense thriller film. The melody was whistled by the child murderer Hans Beckert (who was played by Peter Lorre).

 

Back on April 15, 2011, I posted about Does your introductory music clash with your presentation?

 

An image of a marching band was adapted from this one at Openclipart.

 

Donald Trump lost the lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll because he just was not a credible witness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today ex-president Trump had a multimillion dollar worst moment. An article by Adam Reiss and Dareh Gregorian at NBC News on May 9, 2023 reported that Trump found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll in civil trial and is ordered to pay $5 million. An earlier article by the same authors on May 4, 2023 about his prior deposition being played is titled E. Jean Carroll rests case in civil trial after jurors see video of Trump confusing her with his ex-wife (Marla Maples). He complained the photo Carroll’s attorney showed him was ‘blurry.’ Another article by Philip Bump at The Washington Post on May 5, 2023 is titled Did Trump’s anti-glasses vanity doom his E. Jean Carroll defense? Donald’s refusal to wear reading glasses (and see clearly) demolished his claim that Carroll just “wasn’t his type.”

 

Of course, in the aftermath of that unanimous verdict (in less than four hours). the May 9, 2023 NBC News article also reported:

 

“A Trump campaign spokesman said in a statement, ‘Make no mistake, this entire bogus case is a political endeavor targeting President Trump because he is now an overwhelming front-runner to be once again elected President of the United States.’

 

‘This case will be appealed, and we will ultimately win,’ the statement said.”

 

I don’t think the case was at all political – that sexual assault took place long before Trump entered politics. And I don’t see good reasons for an appeal, since Trump’s lawyer didn’t put on a defense (or call him in person).

 

The gavel image came from Wikimedia Commons. 

 

UPDATE

 

 

At a CNN town hall just a day after the jury verdict, Donald ‘Blurry’ Trump verbally attacked E. Jean Carroll, as was reported by Ewan Palmer at Newsweek on May 11, 2023 in an article titled Donald Trump just opened himself up to being sued again.

  

 

 

 

Do you suffer from the heartbreak of aibohphobia, the fear of palindromes?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines aibohphobia as:

 

“Fear of palindromes (words, verses, sentences, or numbers that read the same backward or forward).”

 

It also is a palindrome, and it comes from taking the last five letters of phobia, reversing them to form a prefix, and adding phobia as the suffix. The word appears under Jocular and Fictional Phobias in the Wikipedia article List of Phobias. Wikipedia says this word is a piece of computer humor from the 1981 The Devil’s DP Dictionary. But OptimistMinds has an apparently serious article titled Fear of palindromes (a brief overview).

 

There is an article on palindromes by James A. Fussell in the Chicago Tribune on January 4, 2002 titled Sit on a potato pan, Otis: We are the palindrome generation. He says that, since the word palindrome isn’t a palindrome, it should be replaced by the word palinnilap – which is one. Another article by Jonathan Becher at Manage By Walking Around on March 20, 2022 is titled Fun with palindromes, without aibohphobia.

 

There even is a song titled Aibohphobia by Shakey Graves, whose lyrics are here. 

 

I previously have blogged about the heartbreaks of both robophobia and scriptophobia.

 

Who builds and sets up the presidential lecterns?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw an AP article by Zeke Miller and Colleen Long from October 11, 2022 titled Give him a hand: Biden ditching lectern for handheld mics. It mentioned that the type of large, bullet-resistant lectern shown above is known as a Blue Goose, and its smaller brother is a Falcon. An article by Josh King at The Verge on January 25, 2017 titled Trump’s big league microphone described the switch to a single close-in gooseneck microphone replacing the former pair of Shure SM 57s. That article described how the audio and other setups are carried out by a military unit (mostly of non-commissioned officers [NCOs]) known as the White House Communications Agency (WHCA).

 

Another article by Jacqueline Harnes at the U.S. Army on January 26, 2011 describes how the President is Wired for Sound. Still another article by Michael L. Lewis at the NCO Journal on April 21, 2015 titled NCOs Integral to Enabling the President to Communicate Anytime, Anywhere notes that:

 

“Service members at WHCA build every presidential podium, outfit and man every motorcade communications vehicle, operate the president’s TelePrompTer, and transport the necessary equipment wherever it is needed worldwide.”

  

Paul Simon even mentioned the presidential lectern or podium in a verse of his 1973 song, Loves Me Like a Rock:

 

“…. If I was President

And the Congress called my name

I’d say ‘now who do…

Who do you think you’re fooling?’

 

I’ve got the presidential seal

I’m up on the presidential podium

My mama loves me, she loves me

She get down on her knees and hug me

And she loves me like a rock….”

 

There is a good article about using microphones by Brian Young on pages 14 and 15 of the July 2015 Toastmaster magazine titled The Power of Sound. There also is a 5 – 1/2 minute YouTube video titled Toastmasters Tips -The Proper Way to Use a Microphone.

 

An oblique view of a Blue Goose lectern came from here at Wikimedia Commons.