The College of Communication prides itself on the integration of a liberal arts education with today’s latest communication practices in journalism, advertising, public relations and mass communication. The school is known for its grammar-obsessed professors who lecture to always read and re-read your work, and for its everlasting love affair with AP Style. So, when the journalism department mass-emails all of its students, you’d think the department would practice what it preaches, right? Wrong.
On Tuesday afternoon, COM journalism students were invited to a panel discussion on public service and the press at the Mary Baker Eddy Library this Thursday. The email’s subject line, however, read “In Word &’ Deed: Pubic Service &’ the Press – Program Thurday Evening, The Mary Baker Eddy Library.” Students were visually assaulted with not one, but two typos before even opening the actual email. The words “public” and “Thursday” were mispelled, creating an embarrassing mistake for the department not only because of the actual error, but also because of the sheer outrageousness of the “public” typo.
Surely, the subject line was a mistake. And while the contents of the rest of the email suffered no more glaring errors (though it was also written by the Mary Baker Eddy Library, not COM’s journalism department), it was still enough to have Facebook and Twitter statuses running rampant with criticism and jokes about the school.
While most students probably did not notice the mistake, or did not even look at the email before deleting it off their smart phones, those that did were provided with some laughs during the crazy week before finals period. And while the mistake caused a smudge on COM’s public image, with all the ROFL-ing students on the Internet, obviously no serious threat to the school’s reputation has been made. After all, the email was only sent to students within the journalism department.
The upside? Many students read and gave thought to an email they would probably have ignored under usual circumstances. If COM couldn’t communicate properly about events such as this one before, well, now they know one way to get our attention.
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