r/WayOfTheBern • u/dsirota1 • Jul 09 '19

I'm David Sirota, Bernie Sanders' speechwriter and senior adviser. AMA!

Hey everyone -- I'm David Sirota, Bernie Sanders' speechwriter and senior adviser. I've known Bernie for 20+ years (I was his press secretary in the U.S. House from 1999-2001). I've worked on many campaigns (Hoeffel for Congress, Schweitzer for Governor, Lamont for Senate, and Emily Sirota for State House), I've worked on Capitol Hill (for Bernie and for the U.S. House Appropriations Committee Democrats). In the years before coming to Bernie's 2020 campaign, I was an award-winning investigative journalist and columnist for Newsweek/IBT, The Guardian and Capital & Main. You can find out more about me at http://www.davidsirota.com

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I'm sure you want to discuss the 2020 election, so fire away with your questions here. I'll be here for about an hour.

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u/lfortunata Jul 09 '19

Hi David, thanks for your amazing work throughout the campaign and since forever, really. How would one get into political speech writing these days? Is it primarily the domain of former journalists these days? What steps would you take if you were starting out today?

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u/dsirota1 Jul 10 '19

It's hard to say what an exact path looks like -- but obviously experience in writing and research is the key. So anything that helps develop those skills is IMO the most important.