Friday, February 15, 2008
The Hypocrisy of Ghostwriting
On Wednesday we talked about how ghostwriting is not considered as fraud or plagiarism. I have to say that I wasn’t fully aware of the extent ghostwriting takes place before the discussion in class. It surprises me how many celebrities can have a book ghostwritten and barely acknowledge the ghostwriters and get away with it without any consequences. In fact, it makes no sense to me at all because if a student plagiarizes on a paper, he or she would probably get a zero or maybe even expelled. This is definitely hypocrisy because we are taught that plagiarism is unacceptable, but we see celebrities facing no negative consequences for having ghostwriters.
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5 comments:
My question is to what extent is ghostwriting plagiarism? If not don't you think we should create a whole genre of unnacceptable writing circumstances? I believe that we are on the brink of eliminating ghostwriting altogether or either redefining our perceptions of ghostwriting. Or perhaps our conception of ghostwriting will stay the same, staying in the background with a certain few criticizing it. Where do you think this part of society will go?
I agree. They make money off of other people writing books for them and we would fail a class! I think ghostwriting can be ok for celebrities, espeicially politicians that have a lot to say but no time to write. BUT they should be required to have the ghostwriters name on the cover right under their name.
With politicians, campaign speeches usually revolve around talking points...so it's the same speech, over and over again. I don't feel ripped off in that respect. When I was in high school, I would read a lot of autobiographies, Brett Favre, Mick Foley (although he wrote his own)...etc, and most of the books are just a product of the celebrity talking into a tape recorder and the ghostwriter doing the grunt work. If they need to strike while the iron is hot, it would make sense that they wouldn't have the time to do it while they are shooting films, television, etc.
for some reason, the fact that lame celebrities want to write a book about their struggles in life simply does not interest me. Maybe because I know what they write (or have written by someone else) will not effect me. But it does bother me that people write books for politicians, who's decisions and platforms can effect my life. We also must not forget that ghostwriters are compensated extremely well for their work, and political speech writers are some of the best minds in the country, not to mention that their jobs are some of the most difficult. While I think their role is often times minute and somewhat petty, but often times their work (and not the work of their boss) is quite impressive.
Absolutely I agree. "Ghostwritting" is nothing more than allowed plagiarism made acceptable because the person has money, fame or office.
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