The Media Spamming charter published yesterday sets out basic standards for media relations and the distribution of content. It follows the Inconvenient PR Truth campaign earlier this year and is important for two reasons.

• It formally acknowledges the need for research, planning and relevance in the PR industry. Planning has for too long been limited to matching an audience to a media category in a database. Mark Borkowski famously said that media databases are the technological equivalent of crack for lazy PRs
• Secondly, the organisations that represent our industry are working together. The PRCA (Public Relations Consultants Association), the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and the Investor Relations Society (IRS) have drafted the document with the support of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). It’s in the best interests of the PR industry to be represented by strong organisations and all the better if they share a single voice

Naysayers will claim that the charter is heavy handed and has no real clout. To the first point read the document for yourself and make your own view. And on the second, the PR industry has never had a means of enforcing professional practice through qualification and continuous professional development (CPD). The best we can hope for are robust codes of practice.