Tech & Biz

Ghost-Written Journalism: "Hey, I Wrote That!"

by Jordan Yerman | June 14, 2008 at 07:10 am

548 views | 32 Recommendations | 8 comments

There's a great discussion going on this morning about intellectual property and reporting, and this throws an interesting spin on it: What happens when the original article is itself an unattrbuted quote?

Well-known San Antonio Express-News music writer and columnist Ramiro Burr, facing allegations that he hired a ghost writer to produce more than 100 stories and columns since 2001, tendered his resignation Tuesday afternoon as the newspaper's investigation into this and other violations of the newspaper's ethics policy by Burr was drawing to a conclusion.

It reminds me of stories from a few years back during the dot com boom when there was some concern about offshoring work to India. Some people jokingly claimed that they hired some folks in India to do their own jobs for them, and were able to make a good living without having to do much work, other than reviewing the work of others. It's not clear if this ever really happened, but would it really be that ridiculous if it did? Yes, there's the moral question of whether or not it was right for this guy to present the work of someone else as his own, but that happens every day. Almost every political speech is written by someone else -- yet no one worries about the ethics there. Books are ghost written all the time. Hell, I've been both asked to ghost write a book for someone else and had someone offer to ghost write a book for me (in the same week, no less!). So, is this really such a big scandal?

I think it is, since established media's whole brand is based around authenticity and accountablility. Almost weekly, we read of a new scandal that puts the lie to such claims, and this is just one more.

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Beaulieu

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:46 on June 14th, 2008

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Jennings David L

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:53 on June 14th, 2008

jordan, this is always a very interesting topic and important to artisits, writers, photographers and other creative people. The internet really blurs the issue with uploading of videos and re-mixes often without attribution.

Beaulieu

at 08:26 on June 14th, 2008

I think,if you 'admit to it being ghostwritten' perhaps this can show 'honesty' and 'integrity' although, in reality, this may be impossible in some cases. Many actresses do this but at least they state this in their books.

Yes, many things are ghostwritten. Laws, for example are rigged together by many 'unnamed Government officials. The Queen, has her speech 'manipulated' by the Government too.(It feels a bit 'out of order' (inappropriate) though!)

Winston Churchill, of course, made some memorable speeches, being an ex-journalist too, but how much of these, were sneakily 'ghostwritten?'

Blair had 'Education Education Education' - surely Government officials could come up with something better than that? It sounds like some kind of rap song.

In the meantime, Gordon Brown doesn't seem to have come with 'with a powerful ghostwritten speech?' and why not? Every PM has one.

Nice debate.

PEP

at 08:51 on June 14th, 2008

Winston Churchill was a powerful and very prolific writer. He wrote most of, if not all, his own stuff.

futureprogress

at 08:29 on June 14th, 2008

Ghostwriting is a social contract between two parties. The only things that cannot be legally ghostwritten are the signatures on those contracts.

There are many reasons for ghostwriting arrangements and if we cannot rely on the person to actually write the content we should hope it is vetted by them... again in the case of speeches, we all know Obama doesn't write every speech (probably any speech) but he does his thing with it... does this detract from the whole change movement?

Ghostwriting can also be a strong form of protection... and as such can be considered very noble... if morals were considered.

...and in practice, it is the pop-hit singer that is remembered not the writer.

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(;||<

Barry ORegan

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 09:09 on June 14th, 2008

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff. Gee, Ghost Writers are as common today, as they were in the past. Spooky stuff if you come to think about when Journalists hire others to write their material. It's almost like a Seinfeld Sitcom