Speechwriter Siegel up for emmy

Most speechwriters covet a Cicero Speechwriting Award, but one speechwriter is up for an Emmy. Mark Siegel, onetime speechwriter to the late Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has already won a Peabody for the documentary he produced, Bhutto. Before his work for Bhutto, Siegel has written for President Carter and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Beyond producing the film about the assassinated prime minister, he told Law.com:

I also was in a unique role, because I was with her in so many different points of her life—quite literally right next to her—that I am heavily featured in the documentary. And it was a real challenge, because what I wanted to do was produce something that was credible and legitimate, and that meant telling the whole story—the plusses, the minuses, the triumphs, the criticisms. And I think we did that. I also was in a unique role, because I was with her in so many key points of her life — quite literally right next to her — that I am heavily featured in the documentary. And so that’s sort of a different role from a producer. I’m in the film a great deal. But, you know, we’d never done this before and from the rough cuts to the final product was a very interesting process for me — cutting and adding and filling in gaps, and dealing with everything from music to graphics. This is not what I was trained to do.