Question
Exercise 2-3 Ghostwriting Read the following case study on ghostwriting, then answer the following questions 1. What ethical principles of ghostwriting most apply in this case? 2. Most ethical issues relate to promoting truth and avoiding harm? Which of these principles most applies to this case, and how so? 3. What specific advice do you end up giving to Marina as far as how to proceed with 4. What problems do you see in the future as a possible weakness of this choice? And the communications portion of the campaign, and how do you ethically justify this? why do you still feel your decision is the best option, despite this weakness? CASE STUDY: GHOSTWRITING Serious Speeches Pose a Serious Problem for a Speechwriter You are communications director for a city councilwoman, Marina McMannis, who is running for mayor of Bend, Oregon. She is a reference librarian at the community college, noted for her promotion of sustainable development and support of the arts You are proud to be working for her and sincerely feel Bend would benefit from her leadership and values. The main public relations challenge you have with Marina is that is overwhelmingly serious, which makes her come across as dry and a bit dull. Orn the other hand, her Republican opponent, Lloyd Thompson, the current mayor, is quite charismatic and has been a successful businessman in Bend for many years. Marina's platform poses significant challenges to Mayor Thompson's business as usual stance on city management and planning. Since the beginning of the campaign Marina has insisted on writing her own speeches and relied on you just for publicity. Her speeches, while filled with important content and good points, are not getting good results, as she cannot keep the audience's attention because her delivery is dry. You sat her down last You suggested we hire a public speaking coach and tell her you would like to take stance on the issues like the back of your hand, you wrote her a speech to deliver to the week and told her the hard truth about her presentation weaknesses and poll results stab at writing her remaining speeches to improve their audience appeal. Knowing her local teacher's union tomorrow. You, she and the public speaking coach begin working on her presentation together. Marina expresses her discomfort with some of the ideas the coach has for being more "expressive" and some of the humorous commentary you added to spice up her speech. She explains that serious issues deserve serious speeches and wants to go with her traditional speech. You are afraid that she will not win this challenging election if she continues to deliver the serious speeches that are natural for her personality. And you know that Bend will be much better off with Marina as Mayor, and even if they find her a bit boring, they will appreciate her leadership and high ethical principles... but she has to be likeable enough to get elected first. So you are torn between letting her be herself and sacrificing the election. The election campaign is heating up as you have your first town hall meeting this weekend and a debate with Thompson the following week. How should you proceed in advising Marina as her Communications Director?
Explanation / Answer
1 - Ghostwriting is a process where a person hires professional help to write different types of communications. Here the content is being written by the communications director for Marina, who is running for election. In Ghostwriting, it is important to present the truth about the person who is going to use the created content and it should suit the personality of the person. In the above case, Marina is being asked to just change her style of speeches, where she opposes as serious issues need to be dealt in a serious manner.
2 - Here in the case truth is being promoted, no changes are to be made to the content, just they want Marina to change her style of speaking, where some humour could be incorporated with expressions, where before Marina used to give boring speeches with serious facts and serious expressions with self-written speeches. Hence here the truth would be promoted just to avoid harm Marina is asked to change her style of speech, so she becomes more likeable.
3 - I won't give much different advice to Marina than that of the communications director. As the opponent is a sitting mayor with a charismatic personality, some damage is bound to happen. To win an election one must be likeable and must create an influence. Although Marina speaks the truth, her speeches don't interest people, the greatest orators are not the greatest communicators but they do have a sparkling personality, with certain help the achieve what they need. Hence Marina should take help of a public speaking coach and should change a bit her style while delivering the speeches, which could make her likeable personality in Bend.Here we are promoting the truth and avoiding harm, hence no ethical dilemma is involved, it just matter of choice for Marina
4 - In the above-said solution, there is a possible weakness. Marina has been writing her own speeches and had her own way of delivering them, changing it as per the above-given suggestion, it would be little difficult for Marina to adopt changes and there is a possibility that she might fail few times doing so and may return back to the same tone in middle of the speech. Although this may be a possibility, it is still the best option as here we are talking about the transformation of the personality which would make he more involved in public and is the best bet to win an election
