My Weird Week
I never thought I'd see the day when the lead story on PCWorld.com was about me, but it is at the moment. As we're reporting, I'm happily back in the role of editor in chief, a job I resigned from last week for reasons that have been widely commented on in the blogosphere.
I've been telling reporters this afternoon that I meant for my resignation to send a message about editorial independence, but never expected it to attract nearly the attention it did. I hope that folks understand that the fact I'm back is just as big a statement: I've returned because I'm so confident that we PC World editors will continue to have the freedom to call the shots as we see 'em, regardless of our company's financial relationships with the companies we cover.
Over the too-many-years I've been a technology journalist, countless skeptics have asked me whether computer magazines and sites are, in fact, in bed with advertisers. I've always been proud to tell them that I've never once been forced to change or kill a story because it might annoy an advertiser or potential advertiser. And given that we did indeed end up posting the story that set off this controversy, that's still true.
(Actually, someday, when I publish my memoirs, I'll tell all about the incidents when companies have pulled ads because they were annoyed about PC World editorial--there have been a bunch of them, and nobody on the business side of PCW has ever told us editors to do anything but go on serving readers. Which is, of course, both the right thing to do and a smart financial decision: In the media world, if you don't have readers who trust you, you don't have a business, period.)
The folks at our parent company, IDG--chairman/founder Pat McGovern and IDG Communications president Bob Carrigan--have been wonderfully supportive throughout this whole odyssey. IDG's 43-year commitment to editorial independence and integrity continues, and despite what some of the people who commented on this incident have said, you can be sure that if you read something in PC World (as well as our sister publication, Macworld, which was also the subject of some unfair coverage), it's untainted by ad pressures.
If it were any other way, I--and all the journalists on the PCW and Macworld teams--wouldn't be here.
To all of you who said encouraging words over the past week, thank you; it means a lot to me that so many people care about the work we do here. It'll be hard to live up to some of the nice things people have said, but believe me, the entire team is going to work every day to do exactly that.
Mostly, it's great to be back....
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Thank you, Harry, and welcome back.
-Jason @ Macworld
A background ... I use both a Mac and a PC on a daily basis so I know that each has their own advantages and faults. While I read the "10 things to hate about Apple" and "10 things to love about Apple" a few days back ... it was only today, after reading this blog from Harry that I learned about his quitting. My point ... the "10 things to hate about Apple" are so minor and insubstantial that I thought at the time that it was written by an Apple'ite. There are much more important reasons to hate Apple then these little quibbles. Like others have mentioned ... this can't be the article Harry quit over. And the content of this article proves that PC World will do anything to please Apple Corp.
I'm thrilled you're back Harry and that this whole episode is over. Ethics should always win in the end.
http://www.downtheavenue.com/2007/05/pc_world_ethics.html
Renee Blodgett
I was very upset when you resigned but I completely understood your reasons (based on what I had read) and I agreed with you. You've been a great PC World editor. I'm glad to hear you're back. I was concerned PC World wouldn't be the same without you.
Sheri R. Lanza
What a roller coaster week! The system doesn't work without integrity - thank you. It's a relief to have you back.
-Kathryn
Welcome back!
Something good left PC World for a while. Something good has now returned. I certainly hope the right people learned something good from this whole thing as a result.
Sheri R. Lanza's post expresses my feelings exactly.
Anyway, thanks for refusing to compromise -
it's great to have you back!
Cerebus says "My point ... the "10 things to hate about Apple" are so minor and insubstantial..." and is quire right. Which is an indication that this was a pointless, empty, meaningles artilcle that any self-respecting publication would have killed in the name of integrity. Colin Crawford was right kill suck a complete piece of crap and the author should be embarassed to have written it and even more so to claim it an issue of editorial independence to resign over it being killed.
If you want to publish crap then just start your own blog. Don't demean PC World by trying to embarss them into publishing it.
If the right to write and publish such drivel is what editorial integrity now means then journalism as a profesion is truly dead.
Amazed: Apparently your own "meaningles artilcle" is not "quire right." Your spelling errors are very "embarss"-ing as well. Obviously, English is not your "profesion," so your opinions on journalism need to be taken very lightly.
Goodness knows what the hell a "kill suck" is. (Idiot.)
Sheesh! If you're writing about the article, you are SO missing the point. Even Harry says the article was fluff. It was the point that someone wanted to kill it - and not for the journalistic value. If a point could have been made about the worth of the article itself, that would have been something else. Instead the killing was because it was negative about Apple. That's the point, and that's why integrity becomes involved.