When I first left public journalism in 1977 and joined a corporation, I worked for the best damn editor I’ve ever known. His name was Ken Estes, a former reporter/editor for a Dallas daily and a ghost writer for several celebrities (he ghost-wrote Billy Carter’s biography). Ken’s been gone for over a decade, but I still remember everything he taught me. I learned more from Ken than all my journalism schooling combined.

One thing Ken said was that everyone needs an editor. “There’s one writer whose contract stipulates he can’t be edited,” he told me. If memory serves, that was Dan Greenberg at Sports Illustrated, but I could be wrong. “If you read his stuff, you know that’s a mistake,” Ken said.

I hired Ray Bradbury to write a piece for me when I was working at Mattel. I was thrilled beyond belief, and surprised as hell when I spent two hours working over his submission. Hell, Maxwell Perkins edited Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward, Angel” down to 25 percent of its original length.

Along comes blogging, a characteristic of which is no editing. Among all the aspects of blogging to incite conversation, nobody seems to be talking about the consequence of going straight to press without a critical review of grammar, spelling and construction. Case in point: I read a PR blog this morning (the author shall go unnamed) that began with the sentence, “Looks like their in expansion mode again.”

The author is director of a PR firm and former government communicator. I’m not busting his balls—he’s a good writer with intriguing insights. But spelling and grammar still count, particularly among those of us who proclaim ourselves communicators, and the misuse of the possessive is, well, embarrassing.

We all have our weak spots. I know a great writer who can’t get the its/it’s thing right. It’s no big deal. That’s why God made editors. I don’t care about misspellings, grammar errors and lousy construction on any blogs other than those written by professional writers. I have to wonder how we’re going to reconcile our professionalism with the recognition that everybody needs an editor.

By the way, if you catch any errors in this post, e-mail me and I’ll fix ‘em.