Artful Deception

"Artful Deception" by Gregory Baruch of the Washington Post was my first serious exposure to the phenomena of ghostwriting. His article contrasts widely agreed upon examples of fraud with the ghostwriting practices of the publishing industry. Baruch cites examples of dishonored historians, expelled students, deceptive advertisements, and even cheating musicians getting caught and condemned by the public. The rest of the article deals with the widespread use of ghostwriting and its mysterious immunity to any charges similar to the above. Many books today allegedly from the pen of celebrity authors are truthfully the work of nearly invisible writers. Frequently it takes considerable searching to find evidence of such arrangements, the actual author being nothing more than a passing name listed at the back of the book. Occasionally ghostwriting takes on a ridiculous quality, books coming out after their "authors" have died. Yet the practice continues virtually unchallenged. Why?
I understand the necessity of ghostwriting in areas such as politics and business. However even then I feel the individual delivering the text has a responsibility to have considerable input and final say in the writing. The public is not aware of the extent of ghostwriting, as the defense goes. People do not want to read autobiographies written by someone else. In that case the reader is buying a lie; he is not reading the words of the man on the cover but those of someone who may never have spoken with the individual. The reader would then have just as much incentive to purchase a biography or a fiction novel as the lie perpetrated upon them. I find it offensive. To me authorship is a trust between reader and writer, one which ghostwriting grossly violates. This dishonesty even further irritates me when I consider that the ghostwriter receives a pittance for his work, while the "author" rakes in serious sums. I don't think anyone is completely innocent in this practice, the ghostwriter is the enabler to the whole operation. I know I will be very careful about the books I buy that claim to be written by a well-known persona. I don't intend to buy anything that has been ghostwritten. My money will go to the person that has it coming to them.