Unfortunately for those of us who want pat answers, the ghostwriting issue is not cut and dried.

I prefer the personal touch of a blog with an individual voice, but in this case a blog that functions as a more interactive extension of a corporate newsroom is working very well for the client’s image, and is reaching the audience of automakers, and investors that they seek.

Should a point of view/opinion blog be written this way? I don’t think so, but that’s not what this is. Should the PR/marketing counsel an executive on the content of the blog, even when it is written by the executive and in his/her voice? It depends.

The answer is never simple.

This is an exxcelent point yoou make an one that we hear from many companies that cannot or will not set up a company blog. They simply do not have the manpower. They want to enter into the medium, but as you say, they look down their roster of employees and the only one that even has any knowledge of the new Web 2.0 social medium is that intern with a myspace page. Somehow I wouldnt want to leave my company communication campaign in the hands of a kid that only has the fame of being a level 70 on WoW.
We often hear this from companies that want to enter into the blogosphere. This is why we offer expert and professional bloggers to our clients. It gives them options that they never before had with their current staffing. If they like the project, they can always hire a full time employee for the task,. We have seen this work as well.

What gets passed over in the whole discussion of PR folks doing various writing work for companies is the massive streamlining of corporate employees that took place throughout the 1990s and into this century.

The blog in question is basically a news summary of activities the company has been involved in recently. Sounds like a perfect assignment for the in-house communications person. Oops! We laid that person off four years ago! Well, let’s get one of the engineers to do it instead…

The task is a reporter’s task. Most companies have thinned their ranks to the point that they don’t have a lot of staff reporters any more. Just some PR managers who outsource the work to … a PR firm.

Would the writing be more authentic if a project manager added the task to the 483 other things they’re supposed to get done? Maybe. But that won’t help the project move ahead.

I totally agree there are many times when it makes sense for employees to do their own communicating. But don’t ask busy employees to take on company-wide reporting tasks, just because the company decided they can’t afford paid writers any more. The job of researching and writing articles for an official company news source is tough enough for a professional writer to do. Offloading the work to project teams may be a good idea sometimes, but not every time.