Just thinking about the issue of ghost blogging and decided because it’s silly season to take a lead from Richard Bailey and run a poll.
This is not an offical CIPR poll (obviously!) but following the survey results from Writers4business.com back in January which showed 83% of CEOs have their blog ghosted I thought I would dig a bit deeper!
What about Not a member of CIPR and do blog?
Yes… I rushed this through without thinking long enough on it. I will re-post before too many people submit respopnses!
Thanks
You also need an option for Other or more than one option. You’ve just beaten me to something I’ve been musing about since David and you blogged about ghosted blogs and the CIPR Code of Conduct.
My view is that you do what is appropriate and be transparent about it. That means in certain situations you can ghost, but only if the blog discloses the fact that some posts are ghosted. There is also the issue of what is ghosting? Is it if you draft something and the CEO then amends and publishes it? Is it if the CEO gives you bullet points and you turn into into a post?
Why is ghosting a blog different to ghosting a by-lined articles – even national newspapers and professional magazines regularly publish ghosted articles, which not all of their readers know?
The simple fact is that although some of us find writing very easy and can knock off a blog entry quickly, that isn’t the case for many people.
Lots of issues to consider before we can say it is good or bad to ghost. Still thinking about it but my instinct is that “the devil is in the detail” and it depends on how you are doing it.
Couldn’t agree more, Stuart. What about writing a speech for a CEO? There are loads of examples of ‘ghosting’. Should guidelines be focussing on the attitude behind the writing rather than the practice itself? (ie. is it not better to ghost but be honest about it?)
My gut instinct is that this situation is preferable than a blanket-ban.
You might be better off having the poll over on APRGM… no-one is responding to mine!