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Jennifer Ferris asks how important it is to be politically
correct in a public relations writing campaign. The quick
answer is that you never do yourself any good insulting or
otherwise offending any significant portion of your
audience; thus, rather than worrying about what it takes to
be politically correct, worry about what will offend your
audience. You'll always find someone who will be offended
by even the most innocent comment, so all you can
reasonably do is avoid the biggies:
- aim for gender neutral language. We've beaten this to
death in various discussions, but my take on it is that
it's almost never impossible to do this gracefully.
- don't use cultural, religious, racial or sexual jokes,
inuendo or stereotypes.
Most important: Know thine audience. A member of the
religious right will have very different hot buttons than
someone who belongs to the irreligious left. (As opposed to
the irreligious right and the religious left and other
largely meaningless stereotypes... an example only!)
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one
of our reports, it don't represent FERIC's
opinion.
