the ethics of speechwriting

The Mercury News today included an op-ed piece on the ethics of politicians using speechwriters. The author, who in the 1970s wrote term papers for a company that sold them to students, argues, "selling term papers to students to use as their own is still illegal, but selling speeches to politicians to use as their own remains a legitimate enterprise." What does this have to do with organizational communication? The issue may seem only related to political communication, but organizing is at the core of politics--the two major political parties often are referred to as "machines" because they're highly bureaucratic organizations.

Speechwriting brings up the notion of accountability Cheney et al. raise at several points in Chapter 14, particularly in the section on ethics as an issue for organizations. But there seems to be a double standard. For example, the author of the op-ed piece, David McGrath, points out that the president of Jacksonville State U was chastised for having someone else write at least three of his weekly newspaper column with crediting the writer. Yet politicians commonly use speechwriters without attribution and that's accepted.

For an interesting take on plagiarism, including an index on plagiarists, visit War on Plagiarism, a site developed by John Lekso, English Professor at Saginaw Valley State University.

~ Professor Cyborg