Credibility

I am increasingly bothered and concerned about the number of professionals on radio and television who are speaking with articulation problems. On a recent NPR broadcast, one reporter had a distinct fronted /s/. This means he had a "lisp". I felt the need to wipe the saliva from my radio speakers! Slight exaggeration but not far from the truth! Doug Layton, a radio commentator for football at the University of Alabama, has a distinct articulation problem. Heaven help us all when Lou Holtz or Barney Frank speaks. There may or may not be substance to what they say but the delivery kills credibility. Credibility is the key here. The poor articulation also becomes a distraction from the message. These speech errors are NOT resistent to correction. The problem is the speaker never received the training they needed from a speech-language pathologist. If you have a speech problem, find the help you need by seeking the services of a qualified speech-language pathologist!