TIPPING POINT: For every Pippa Middleton who actually writes her own tome, many more celebrities leave it to the hack in the small print to do the real work

IT WAS Pippa Middleton wot got me thinking first. In case you’ve missed it, the Duke of Cambridge’s sister-in-law has got an advance of close to half a million euro for a book on party planning. The result has been some predictably envious sniping, most of it from other women writers.

But while Pippa’s literary merits have yet to be established, there is clearly nothing wrong with the sort of planning prowess that can turn a relatively tenuous family-link and a pert posterior into half a million lids.

What is even more interesting, though, is that Pippa has told “friends” she will not be employing a ghost-writer for the gig. In a reversal of a trend that is much more common than Joe and Josephine Public might believe, the face on the cover will actually have had some input into what is contained inside. A reminder of how prevalent the alternative is has been illustrated since Friday’s Euro 2012 draw.

Several square hectares of the Amazon rain forest have been sacrificed to make sure platoons of ex-footballers get across to an expectant public their considered and expert view on how the Irish team are going to get on in Poland and the Ukraine next summer. Take these swathes of newsprint at face value and it is clear some of these players have been hiding their intellectual lights under vast bushels.

Years of televised evidence in which they have mangled the English language to within an inch of death has clearly not reflected their expressive prowess once handed a pen, or indeed a keyboard.

The difference is, of course, such expression in print comes to you via an interpreter, or as they are otherwise known, a ghost. Their name is sometimes – though increasingly not – at the bottom of a celebrity’s tome, usually in a tiny font, in brackets and sometimes preceded by the words “in a conversation with”.

That gives it a nice cosy Beatrix Potter vibe, as if tucked up in a warm burrow, drinking cocoa and generally just shooting the breeze. The reality, as every sports hack that has ever drawn breath knows only too well, can be very different.

Ghosted columns can work, and they can prove useful. But that is dependant on the attitude of the “name” a publication is forking out to. Some take it seriously, and have their thoughts worked out beforehand, so all the journo’ has to do is lend a certain coherence to a valuable behind-the-scenes insight.

In this corner’s experience though, many treat the task of actually ponying up some words as an irritating post-cashing-the-cheque chore. And the result of that is often anodyne, time-serving dross that fills space while simultaneously drowning the sporting audience in a platitudinous sea of cant.

It isn’t just football. The coverage of practically every sport in every organ can include such an “expert” viewpoint, sometimes with wildly fluctuating results. Rarely however, even with the most tepid stuff, is it completely the hack’s fault. When informed that a thousand words is required and the “name” deigns to ’fess up no more than 50 in a phone call, often distinguishable solely for the antipathy and disdain on both sides, it behoves the journo’ to flesh out that meagre offering into something much bigger while bearing in mind the urgent requirement to avoid scribbling anything that might end up being read out by a court stenographer.

Yours truly has in the past performed miracles of expansion that make the loaves and fishes look like JC was goofing off. The grudging monosyllabic utterances of one jockey wouldn’t have filled a paragraph on their own but were expanded into a column that might not have threatened any Pulitzer board but nevertheless filled space and provided an illusion of inner-sanctum intimacy.

The memory of that chore is what I used recently to smile my way through a dental appointment while simultaneously considering with awe the achievement of a colleague who trumped that 1,000-word drudge with a best-selling, 100,000-word biography of the same taciturn subject, who on the face of it seems to have been munching chatty pills.

Another horsey worthy, famous for his supposedly comprehensive knowledge of the gee-gees, ultimately emerged as having about as much detailed knowledge of the formbook as he had of the Granth.

A cross-channel colleague likes to tell the story of ghosting a footballer for a year, at the end of which said footballer’s interest in the process was illustrated by asking, “Wot paper is this for anyway?”

Despite the often dubious substance of this stuff, though, it continues to be hoovered up. The old line about the public getting what it wants or what it is offered conveniently ignores how cut-throat the media market is, and the choice that that competition ensures. And what the majority clearly want is name-recognition. It’s probably got something to do with our celebrity-obsessed culture. Whether it’s useful, of course, is another matter.

It can be. John McEnroe is mesmeric when it comes to explaining the nuances of tennis; Martina Navratilova the same. Even John Giles’ more curmudgeonly moments are jewels of football wisdom, both in print and on telly. That’s because they combine the credibility of knowledge with the ability to communicate it. And the comparative rarity of that combination is what makes such expertise stand out.

Less versatile figures calculate their sporting reputation is enough when filling their post-retirement time with “mee-ja” work, reckoning any rubbish will do to shovel out there. And any criticism of such a rip-off will inevitably result in a riposte about how many goals, medals, caps, winners, tournaments said critic hasn’t collected in comparison, a dumb position to adopt since taken to its logical conclusion it means figures such as Jose Mourinho or JP McManus don’t know what they’re talking about either.

Of course that doesn’t mean journalists have some sort of monopoly on wisdom either. Evidence of spoofery, laziness and downright sleaziness sadly abounds among NUJ members too. No doubt recent disclosures about media cock-ups have reinforced the public’s lowly opinion of a profession that even at the best of times resides somewhere between cockroach and hospital consultant.

There remains, however, a crucial distinction. Theoretically we’re on your side. Theoretically it’s our job to inform you, to ferret out what those on the inside don’t want to talk about. The reality might be a lot more blurry, but that same reality indicates most “names” know only too well which side they remain on.

The result of that can make depressing reading and viewing. But those same “names” seem to be in more demand than ever. I’m sure that says something significant, something sociologically profound, maybe even indicative of our cultural future. But mostly it just shows how far a celebrity profile can take you.