PC World EIC Resigns

For two years I worked only a few feet away from Harry McCracken's office at the IDG building on 501 2nd Street in San Francisco. Harry has been with PC World forever, he's an icon and much-loved by the people who work on the magazine. But now he's gone.

From what I hear Harry resigned on Wednesday over a dispute with senior management at PC World regarding an online story about Apple. The story, headlined "Ten Things We Hate About Apple," would have irked a major advertised and was pulled.

"I spent 12 years at PC World; it's been incredibly good to me," McCracken told my colleague Tom Krazit at CNET News.com.

Wired's Kim Zetter broke the news on Harry's departure. She writes that IDG executive Colin Crawford told editors that product reviews in PC World were too critical of vendors, especially ones who advertise in the magazine, and that they had to start being nicer to advertisers.

I commend Harry. It takes guts to make such a move. He's taking one for the team and I hope PC World and IDG executives realize that editorial integrity is a big thing. If you let that go, your readership will find out and soon you won't have anyone buying your magazines or going to your Web site. After that the advertisers will be gone as well.