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The public is well aware of the role of presidential speechwriters, and to a lesser extent most of us know that Senators and Representatives also use staff to produce opinion pieces and speeches that help create support for their legislative agenda. John F. Kennedy, it is well known, received a Pulitzer Prize for a book he didn't write. (One rare exception in the District was former Sen. Paul Simon, who as a former downstate Illinois newspaperman relished writing his own material.)

That is how business is done in D.C., and many Christian and conservative activists there also use staffwriters to promote their moral agenda to the nation's leaders. Perhaps those of us in the know need to educate the reading public to this phenomenon.

Second, in recent informal conversations, I have heard people compare staffwriting with plagiarism. These are not the same thing. Popular historians Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin have recently been criticized for plagiarism. Chuck Colson and others have been criticized for using hired writers.

Plagiarism violates two responsibilities: one to the original author of the material and one to the reader. Plagiarism first denies due credit (and sometimes compensation) to the original author. And then it misleads the reader.

Using hired writers does not routinely violate the responsibility to the one who crafts the words. There is usually a clear business arrangement (often a written contract), and writers are often willing to trade credit for compensation. If the contract is fulfilled, the responsibility is met.

But using hired writers still has the potential for misleading readers. To avoid misunderstanding, many celebrity authors will name a hired writer on their book's title page (as Bruce Wilkinson did in The Prayer of Jabez) or in a book's acknowledgments or even on the dust jacket (as Charles Colson did for How Now Shall We Live?).

The irony of Tim Rutten's piece in the Los Angeles Times is that it claimed that one of the trailblazers of disclosure had something to hide. There has hardly been any high-profile Christian author who has been more open about the role of staffwriters. Go figure.

Two footnotes: (1) Christianity Today's online editors helped with the research for this column. (2) I telephoned Nancy Pearcey to discuss Rutten's piece. She replied by e-mail, saying she was unavailable until after this commentary's deadline.

Tim Rutten's Colson commentary was the second item in his Friday "Regarding Media" column.

Colson responded to Rutten's column in yesterday's Breakpoint radio commentary.

People involved in researching and writing for Colson are listed on the "About Breakpoint" page, which seems to be a bit out of date.

Journalists have been discussing Rutten's column at Jim Romenesko's MediaNews Weblog (see his letters page).

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March (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46