Quantity over quality?

I recently received an email from a IT director commenting on different articles published after interviews he gave. To cut a long story short, he actually graded the articles based on how well written the pieces were. This wasn’t focusing on the content, but instead on the use of the English language. It bought to light an interesting issue that is coming increasingly to the fore: technically poor writing. Too often when we read things now there are typos, poorly constructed sentences or worse still sentences that simply don’t make sense.

Despite dabbling in journalism before entering PR, I rarely write a first draft that is anywhere near good enough to be shared outside of the Spark offices. That’s why anything I write for public consumption is given a second look. However, there seem to be diminishing amounts of time for proofing and sub editing at many publications. It’s not journalists’ fault: they are being pushed to write more and deliver it quicker. Yet I wonder if publishers are asking themselves about the cost of this? Have they noticed a decline in standards? Journalists and editors I speak to are all too aware but don’t have time to do anything about it. They are measured on numbers of readers and volume of articles, not the quality of the piece. It strikes me that if publishers aren’t careful their audience, for example the IT director above, will start forming a negative impression of the content that their organisations produce.

Tweeting, texting and blogging have driven the rise of a more informal style of writing. Some believe that this is dumbing down society, while for others the advantages of more frequent, direct and informative content outweigh concerns around a decrease in quality. The question is: are quality issues distracting readers from the message authors are trying to deliver? Whilst the drive for more news delivered faster is unstoppable, the wise will ensure that they invest in safety nets to ensure that the content they produce reads well!