In praise of the (failed) teleprompter

Mick Fleetwood and Samantha Fox host the teleprompter disaster 1989 Brit Awards. Photograph: Dave Hogan

This just in. Hubert Schlafly, the man jointly credited with the invention of the teleprompter, has died at the age of 91. Often known in this country as the Autocue, Schlafly's creation has become an indispensable piece of broadcasting equipment, releasing newsreaders from the necessity of memorising scripts, and helping politicians to appear sincere by seeming to look their voters in the eye.

It has also brought many benefits. Chief among these is the sense of security that it falsely lulls presenters into. Without the help of a failed Autocue, the world would have been denied the epic shambles of the Brit Awards in 1989 when Samantha Fox and Mick Fleetwood stumbled over their words, failed to show a recorded message from Michael Jackson and introduced Boy George as the Four Tops. Years later, Fox told the Guardian: "We were given the wrong cards to announce the acts, the Autocue was broken and the lady who was meant to be prompting, well, I don't want to be ageist, but I'm not sure she could hear everything that was going on."

The best autocue disasters, however, are those that involve experienced performers. It was the sonorous authority in Adam Boulton's voice, for instance, that made it such a treat when one of his Sky News colleagues accidentally fed him filler copy to read. "Coming up!" Boulton announced to the world. "No more than 12 words or four seconds. I don't understand that at all," he added, showing the veteran's instinct to know what his audience was thinking.

Bolder presenters, on the other hand, just refuse to acknowledge an Autocue malfunction. (Or, more damningly, don't notice.) Virginia Trioli, a news anchor on the Australian network ABC, is a strong contender here. "Good morning," she told the nation. "You're watching ABC News 24. I'm Michael Roland." And without flinching, she carried on.

And then there was Jonathan Charles on BBC World News. Charles is an Oxford graduate and a distinguished foreign correspondent who speaks fluent French and German. Yet as far as 1.7m people on YouTube are concerned, he will always be the guy who failed to pause when reading, "I'm Jonathan Charles, kept hidden for two decades and forced to bear children . . ."

For their speeches, politicians generally favour two Autocues placed diagonally, giving the impression that it is the live audience they are really talking to. Barack Obama has become famed for his reliance on the teleprompter. His enthusiasm for striding around means that he can lose track of where his screens are in a busy room. On other occasions his teleprompters have crashed to the ground (at the White House, while speaking on the economy) when he is trying to read from them, and even infected the former Irish prime minister Brian Cowen on a visit for St Patrick's day in 2009. After listening to Obama's address, Cowen stood up and spoke for 20 seconds, before realising he had been rereading his host's speech, which had erroneously reappeared.

Finally, pity poor Gordon Brown, who launched his campaign for the leadership campaign in May 2007 with an Autocue masking half his face.

Thank you, Hubert Schlafly. And good night.