Editing Teleprompter (section)

==History==
{{Globalize||USA|date=September 2023}}
[[File:LBJ Civil Rights Act crowd.jpg|right|thumb|U.S. President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] uses a teleprompter while announcing the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]].]]
The [[TelePrompTer Corporation]] was founded in the 1950s by [[Fred Barton, Jr.]], [[Hubert Schlafly]] and [[Irving Berlin Kahn]]. Barton was an [[actor]] who suggested the concept of the teleprompter as a means of assisting television performers who had to memorize large amounts of material in a short time.<ref>{{Cite book
| publisher = The Difference
| isbn = 0-9767761-0-3
| last = Brown
| first = Laurie
| title = The Teleprompter Manual
| date = 2005-12-28
}}</ref>
Schlafly built the first teleprompter in 1950. It was simply a mechanical device, operated by a hidden technician, located near the camera.<ref>Engineers' Device Eased Speechmakers' Minds, ''Wall Street Journal'', April 26, 2011, p. A6</ref> The script, in inch-high letters, was printed by a special electric typewriter on a paper scroll, which was advanced as the performer read, and the machines rented for the then-considerable sum of $30 per hour.<ref>"TV's Cost-Cutting Gadgets," Sponsor, 22 September 1952, 36. [http://americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Sponsor-Magazine/1952/Sponsor-1952-09-2.pdf Green Bay-de Pere Telephone Directory {{!}} Even Our Phone Number Tells Our Story... ADAMS 1 → TV gadgets that save money for sponsors]</ref>

The teleprompter was used for the first time on December 4, 1950, in filming the CBS soap ''The First Hundred Years''.<ref>Stromberg, Joseph, A Brief History of the Teleprompter, ''Smithsonian Magazine'', 22 October 2012</ref> It was used by [[Lucille Ball]] and [[Desi Arnaz]] in 1953<ref name="Oppenheimer"/> to read commercials on-camera. [[Jess Oppenheimer]], who created ''[[I Love Lucy]]'' and served for its first five years as its producer and head writer, developed the first "in-the-lens" prompter<ref name="Oppenheimer">Laughs, [https://books.google.com/books?id=7fW-rGDmGxIC&pg=PA204 Luck...and Lucy: How I Came to Create the Most Popular Sitcom of All Time, by Jess Oppenheimer with Gregg Oppenheimer], pp. 204–205.</ref> and was awarded U.S. patents<ref>{{cite patent|country=US|number=2883902|pubdate=1959-04-28|title=Prompting apparatus|inventor1-last=Oppenheimer|inventor1-first=Jess}}</ref><ref>{{cite patent|country=US|number=2926559|pubdate=1960(1951 TV series)]]-03-01|title=Prompting apparatus for cameras|assign1=Jayo Corp.|inventor1-last=Oppenheimer|inventor1-first=Jess}}</ref> for its creation. His system uses a mirror to reflect a script onto a piece of glass placed in front of the camera lens, thus allowing the reader to look directly into the camera.

The producers of ''[[Dragnet (1951 TV series)|Dragnet]]'' estimated the use of teleprompters cut the show's production time by as much as 50%<ref name="New Business Tool 1954 pp. 122-113">New Business Tool: the TelePromTer,” ''Business Screen Magazine'', V. 145. No. 1, (February 1954), pp. 122–113</ref> [[Arthur Godfrey]], [[Raymond Massey]], [[Sir Cedric Hardwicke]], and [[Helen Hayes]] were early users of the technology.<ref name="New Business Tool 1954 pp. 122-113"/>

The technology soon became a staple of [[television news]] and is the primary system used by newscasters today.

In 1952 former President [[Herbert Hoover]] used a Schlafly-designed speech teleprompter<ref>{{Cite web |last=Help Center |first=TeleprompterPAD |title=What is a Presidential Teleprompter? |url=https://help.teleprompterpad.com/hc/en-gb/articles/9837075415453-What-is-a-presidential-teleprompter}}</ref> to address the [[1952 Republican National Convention]] in [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]]. U.S. Governor [[Paul A. Dever]] spoke at the [[1952 Democratic National Convention]], also held in Chicago, using a mechanical-roll teleprompter on a long pole held by a TV technician in the convention audience, while the 1952 Republican National Convention used a smaller teleprompter placed in front of the speaker's rostrum.<ref name="Smithsonian"/> Mechanical prompters were still being used as late as 1992.{{citation needed|date=January 2020}}

In the early years of teleprompter use by politicians, some saw the device as cheating.<ref>George E. Condon, Radio and Television Editor, On The Air, ''Cleveland Plain Dealer'', May 13, 1955, p. 14</ref> in 1955, [[Richard L. Neuberger]], a Democratic Senator from Oregon, proposed legislation that if a politician used a teleprompter the use of the device had to be noted in the speech.<ref>Political Burlesque Blamed on TV Dubbing, ''Cleveland Plain Dealer'', August 20, 1955, P. 19</ref>
[[File:1960s Cinecraft - Ohio Story film crew on sound stage.jpg|thumb|[[Cinécraft Productions]] used teleprompters extensively in their filmed made for television programs. Image courtesy of Hagley Museum and Library.]]

The new technology saw quick adoption in the [[sponsored film]] industry where cutting production costs made the difference between a film that made money and one that lost money. [[Cinécraft Productions]] was the first to advertise the availability of three-camera synchronized filming with a teleprompter when in 1954 they began to advertise their use of the new technology in ''Business Screen'', a magazine dedicated to the sponsored film industry.<ref>Cinecraft Productions, Fourth Production Review, Business Screen Magazine, v. 15, no. 1 February 1954, p. 96 https://digital.hagley.org/businessscreen?page=4</ref> Cinécraft used the technique to film the 1953–1960 weekly television series ''The Ohio Story''.<ref>Hagley Library has digitized a number of the ''Ohio Story'' TV episodes and posted them on their research website. https://digital.hagley.org/2019227</ref> Cinécraft also used the technique for executive ''desk talks'' in the 1950s and 1960s.<ref>See, for example, the Republic Steel Corporation “Building Economic Understanding series https://digital.hagley.org/islandora/search/%22Building%20economic%20understanding%22?type=edismax&cp=islandora%3A2623872</ref>

On January 4, 1954,<ref>"Ike Uses Pair of Teleprompters". ''Cleveland Plain Dealer'', January 6, 1954, p. 13.</ref> [[Dwight Eisenhower]] was the first President to use a teleprompter for a State of the Union address.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/A-Brief-History-of-the-Teleprompter-175411341.html |title=A Brief History of the Teleprompter |access-date=2013-07-22 |archive-date=2013-12-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131228194615/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/A-Brief-History-of-the-Teleprompter-175411341.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Alexander|first1=Neta|last2=Keren|first2=Tali|date=September 27, 2021|title=Paper, glass, algorithm: teleprompters and the invisibility of screens|url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14704129211026358|journal=Journal of Visual Culture|language=en|volume=20|issue=2|pages=395–417|doi=10.1177/14704129211026358|s2cid=238220479|issn=1470-4129|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

The first [[personal computer]]-based teleprompter, CompuPrompt, appeared in 1982. It was invented and marketed by Courtney M. Goodin and Laurence B. Abrams in Los Angeles, California. The custom software and specially-redesigned camera hardware ran on the [[Atari 8-bit computers|Atari 800]] computer, which featured smooth hardware-assisted scrolling. Their company later became ProPrompt, Inc., still in business {{As of|2021|lc=y}}. Paper-based teleprompting companies Electronic Script Prompting, QTV, and Telescript followed suit and developed their own software several years later when computers powerful enough to scroll text smoothly became available. In January 2010 Compu=Prompt received a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for "Pioneering Development in Electronic Prompting".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.emmyonline.tv/mediacenter/tech_2k9_winners.html|title=The Emmy Awards - NATIONAL TELEVISION ACADEMY ANNOUNCES 59th ANNUAL WINNERS OF TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING EMMY® AWARDS|date=January 7, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107211123/http://www.emmyonline.tv/mediacenter/tech_2k9_winners.html |archive-date=2012-01-07 }}</ref>