Ah, Morty! I wholeheartedly disagree!

If the ghostwriting is hidden, and then uncovered by some hack, think of the PR implications!

You must be honest and authentic - if you can't have a "naked conversation", what's the point?
Maggie K Fox | Homepage | 10.02.06 - 4:29 pm | #

Maggie,

Nice to hear from you! Even if we disagree. I see your point, but I think we're coming from different perspectives... and maybe really arriving at the same place!

I agree that the blogosphere is a habitat that is unfriendly to ghostwriting. Not only isn't it "Naked"… it's in costume!

However, blogs are moving outside the habitat. Like the Net itself. And just as the rules have changed for the Net (see "Coercion," by Douglas Rushkoff), they are changing for blogs... like it or not. "Nakedness" is a charming attribute in the Eden of the blogosphere. But as blogs spread beyond the garden, the dress rules will change.

Ok, I'm speaking in metaphors. But maybe that's my point. The "rules" are metaphors that have taken on a life of their own. If a CEO (or anybody else) explicitly claims to have personally written a blog (or an article or a book) that was ghostwritten, that would be abhorrent. By that I mean claiming there was no ghostwriter. But that rarely if ever happens. In anything but blogs, it's understood that execs have writing help. Do blogs have different rules from any other channel? By what authority?

Joseph Biden shot himself in both feet when he crippled his 1988 presidential
bid plagiarizing a speech. Bad form.

But is ghostwriting the same as plagiarism? I wonder if anyone would care if Bob Lutz had someone help him write GM's FastLane Blog? I think what people really care about is the reliability and candor of the information, not the authorship. Ultimately, as you point out (here and in your comment to Debbie Weil) it's the public who will decide. If people like it, they'll read it. If not, it's dead.

Morty
Mordechai (Morty) Schiller | Homepage | 10.03.06 - 1:42 pm | #