If You Work in Public Relations, You Should Know How to Spell
Rant time.
Public relations professionals often like to describe themselves as the best communicators in the room. It’s part of the identity of our profession. We shape messages, craft narratives, and translate complicated ideas into language that the public can understand. Communication is the core of our job.
But there is a problem that rears its ugly head far too often in our industry: basic spelling and grammar mistakes.
I’m not talking about typos. We’ve all sent an email too quickly or miss a word when we’re moving fast. That’s normal and unavoidable from time to time.
What I’m talking about are the fundamentals — the kinds of mistakes that shouldn’t be happening at all if writing is your profession.
I’m talking about mixing up their, there, and they’re. I’m talking about confusing your and you’re. I’m talking about misusing its and it’s. I’m talking about apostrophes showing up where they don’t belong and sentences that simply don’t make sense. These are not complicated writing concepts. These are the most basic rules of the English language.
In many professions, writing is just one small part of the job. In public relations, writing is the job. Media pitches, press releases, statements, talking points, op-eds, social media posts, and executive messaging are all built on the written word. Words are literally the product we produce every day.
When grammar is sloppy, the credibility of the message suffers. And when the credibility of the message suffers, the credibility of the communicator suffers with it.
Public relations is built on trust. Journalists have to trust that the information you send them is accurate and professionally presented. Clients have to trust that you are representing their brand with care and competence. The public has to trust the message that is being delivered. When a reporter opens an email pitch and immediately sees basic grammar mistakes, it signals a lack of attention to detail. And if the writing looks careless, people start to wonder where else the work might be careless.
If you are going to claim that communications is your expertise, you have to take the craft seriously. That means proofreading your work. It means understanding the difference between commonly confused words. It means respecting the basic rules of reading, writing, and speaking the English language.
For many of us, English is our native language. We are not even operating in a second language. That makes the expectation even more reasonable: if writing is your profession, the basics should already be second nature.
Public relations professionals often say they are the best communicators in the room. If that’s true, the writing should reflect it. In a profession built entirely on words, getting the basics right isn’t optional. It’s the minimum standard.
