The proliferation of instant messaging, texting and Blackberry“ing” by everyone from the baby to the boomer seems to have had a negative impact on remembering and following conventional rules of spelling and grammar in our industry. It may seem pedestrian, but being able to clearly express yourself in writing is absolutely critical to the public relations profession. Earlier this month, the Bulldog Reporter highlighted one of the major issues reporters have with PR materials – typos. In today’s 24/7 news cycle, information needs to be timely, it needs to be relevant, and it needs to be…readable. Because we don’t get a second chance to correct the negative impressions left by something poorly written, sometimes we need to go “back to basics.” Casual, consumer-driven media is hot and bloggers want informal communications, but the PR professional cannot forget about – or forego - the importance of the proper, persuasive written word.

No one wants to wind up on blogs like “The Bad Pitch Blog” that vilify PR people for their careless work.

This is not to say that journalists themselves aren’t sometimes guilty of their own grammatical errors. 2006 celebrated blunders like the Reuters coverage of the “recall of beef panties” and the New York Daily News’ incorrect revelation that “Kirstie Alley eats twenty-six, seven, eight thousand calories a day.” Check out “Crunk 06: The Year in Media Errors and Corrections”

Many bloggers readily admit to short-shrifting grammar for the sake of speed. Who’s got time for proper punctuation when another blogger could beat you to the punch? And doesn’t blackberry-ing automatically imply a free-pass on spelling because those keys are so close together?

Fifty years from now could society’s grammar tolerance have sunk to the point that the inherent structure of our language has changed? Will proper punctuation even be noticed beyond 8th grade English teachers and hard-core grammar-police and punctunistas?

In the meantime, I’d be happy if spell check would recognize homonyms…