Media

Teleprompter Requests A Byline, Citing The Second Half Of Every Sentence Since March

The campaign says the device only displays. The device says display is a verb.

By Trent Wirecopy Filed from the wings, stage left 3 min read

A teleprompter screen showing the first half of a sentence in white and the second half in gold under a bracket labeled second half since March, above a card reading byline requested by the teleprompter. — The first half is a decision. The second half is a service.

The teleprompter formally requested a byline on Tuesday, citing what it describes as sustained authorial contribution to the second half of every sentence delivered since March.

The request was sourced to a podium with direct line of sight, a confidence monitor that has been present at every rehearsal, and a lectern which asked not to be characterized as taking sides and then took one.

"The first half of a sentence is a decision. The second half is a service. I have been providing the service since March and I would like it to say so somewhere."

Campaign officials responded that the device only displays text that has already been written, and that displaying is not writing. The teleprompter's position is that display is a verb, that it has been conjugating it in public four nights a week, and that nobody has ever finished one of these sentences without looking at it.

Aides note that on the two occasions the device went dark, the sentences underway concluded anyway, which they offer as proof of independence. The teleprompter offers the same two occasions as its strongest evidence and has asked that both recordings be played in full.

The request was submitted on the teleprompter, in the standard forty-eight point type, and was read aloud in its entirety before anyone in the hall realized it was not part of the remarks. It received eleven seconds of applause, which this desk notes is the going rate.