Are ghost writers “good business” or “misrepresentation” ?
While it may have all been a joke, there is a question of ethics …
I read an interesting post via my feed reader this morning. The “author” of the blog fourhourworkweek writes that all of the posts for the past year were not written by him even though they all say “written by Tim Ferriss”. A number of things came to mind when I read his “The Real Tim Ferris Speaks”.
Is he as interesting as his blog posts ?
Is it ethical to have someone else write while you take credit ?
Is this any different from comedians and polititians having staff writers ?
I recognize the blog is primarily a marketing tool to generate business for public speaking engagements and sales of his book. It also has the effect of promoting his persona.
After a few hours of comments - some quite critical - there appeared a comment suggesting this all “might be” an April Fools joke. The risk now then is that everything is in question. Was it a joke or is it now all just damage control ? The original post is quite plausible and the defense that “it’s April 1 somewhere in the world” ran the risk of being “air cover”. It’s all open to interpretation.
(Update: The author just wrote a full post declaing it an early April Fool’s joke.)
So the question still is …
What are the ethics of ghost writing ? Is it different from speech writers, and joke writers ? Should it be ? When a public person is the “face”, how much credit should be given to writers, editors, and assistants ?
I have known a number of professional editors who were ghost writers of things like text books but these do not presume to depict a person directly. A book or blog about “how I live my left” is a different matter. If a speech writer published “personal exploits” the media would be all over the facts and highlight every anomaly.
So, whether the post is real or a joke, the end result is a cloud of uncertainty. Perhaps that just adds to the marketing power of the blog - who knows.
