Who says industry magazines are cozy with their advertisers?

A Nod to Journalistic Integrity Is Seen in an Editor’s Return
By DAVID S. JOACHIM
Who says industry magazines are cozy with their advertisers?

Last week, the International Data Group removed the chief executive of its largest-circulation computer magazine, PC World, and reinstated its top editor, who had quit days earlier over the executive’s decision to not run an article critical of an advertiser.

The editor in chief, Harry McCracken, rejoined the magazine on Wednesday after the disputed article, “10 Things We Hate About Apple,” was posted on the magazine’s Web site.

It was a hero’s homecoming for Mr. McCracken, who was praised on the PCWorld.com message boards and in the blogosphere for sacrificing himself in the name of journalistic integrity.

“I was on the brink of canceling my subscription,” wrote one reader. “Now that McCracken’s back, I’ll stick around, too.”

PC World, a monthly magazine with a companion Web site that mixes technology news with product reviews, has a reputation for smart and sometimes hard-hitting articles that often offend big tech companies.

In recent years, it has criticized several of its advertisers for what it described were bait-and-switch tactics and price gouging. Its survey of the reliability of manufacturers has given poor ratings to several of the magazine’s advertisers. It even has a regular column chronicling the defects in Microsoft software.

Mr. McCracken says that several advertisers have withdrawn ads over the years, after their products were negatively reviewed in the magazine, most recently last month. (He would not name the advertiser.)

“PC World is surprisingly reportorial, especially against some other technology magazines that don’t invest a lot” in articles that might provoke companies, said Sam Whitmore, an analyst in Beverly, Mass., who tracks technology publishers.

That may explain why Mr. McCracken’s resignation drew the attention of hundreds of bloggers. It became a cause célèbre for many who viewed the spiking of the article as an affront to Silicon Valley’s Fourth Estate. To others, it was a confirmation of what they had long suspected — that the business side routinely meddles in editorial decisions at technology magazines, especially in recent years, as ad pages have declined considerably, leaving many magazines to rely on only a handful of advertisers.

Mr. McCracken says he did not quit to make a statement. But now, a part of him is glad that the skirmish became public. “With the conclusion we reached, this should tell everyone that computer journalism isn’t sleazy,” he said.

Even so, on blogs and in interviews, some observers noted that the final version of the Apple article appeared next to another article titled, “10 Things We Love About Apple,” making them wonder whether a compromise had been made to appease Apple, and whether the “We Hate” article had been toned down before publication.

Mr. McCracken, a 12-year veteran of PC World, said that the dustup with his boss occurred while the “We Hate” article was still a draft, and that editing was done before it was published. He said, however, that it was edited without consideration to how Apple might react. He also said that the “We Love” article had been planned all along.

He acknowledged that the “We Hate” article made for an odd source of controversy, because it required little reporting and contained no news. “We saw it as a fun little story that would get people talking,” he said. Wired News called it a “fluffy piece of Digg bait” meant to compel user-driven news sites like Digg.com to link to it.

The ousted chief executive of PC World, Colin Crawford, has been reassigned to his old job of overseeing business development for International Data’s online properties. He did not respond to messages left at his office and on his cellphone.

Mr. Crawford, who had been at PC World for only two months, spent 10 years as chief executive of the company’s Macworld magazine, which is devoted to Apple’s line of Macintosh products. International Data also runs the Macworld convention, where the chief executive of Apple, Steven P. Jobs, introduced the iPhone in January.

Apple is “not just any advertiser,” Mr. Whitmore, the analyst, said, pointing out that Mr. Jobs had a reputation for trying to influence coverage of the company.

Apple did not return calls seeking comment. The writers of the Apple articles, Narasu Rebbapragada and Alan Stafford, declined to comment.

See no evil, hear no evil and say no evil

See no evil, hear no evil and say no evil
May 9th, 2007


That was the first thing that came to my mind as my colleague Mark Dolan at the Department of Journalism (University of Mississippi) commented on the major disconnect which exists between the most journalism faculty’s published research and what goes on in real life newsrooms and television stations.

We were debating how many times we ever heard an editor or publisher refer to an article in Journalism Quarterly or Journalism Monographs (two major publications in journalism education that help faculty get tenured if they publish in them) when they meet with you or talk to you about the business.

It never happens.

The opposite is true with almost any other profession. Doctors refer to the New England Journal of Medicine every time they talk about their research, so do scientists when they refer to Nature magazine. And then come the journalists. We try to debate and analyze the most obscure things that bring our industry no benefit.

I still remember that day in 1985 when I presented my first research on the survival rate of magazines and the looks I received from my academic colleagues. They thought I am the anti Christ. Writing about things that are not historical in nature, which do not analyze the nature of content of the coverage of some war in some magazine, or some women’s issues in some non-women’s magazines—the list goes on and on. From my early career days, I promised myself to make all my research relevant to the industry I love and teach about. From that summer of ‘85, I started directing all my work to the industry rather than my colleagues. All my books, all my articles, my web site and now my blog aim to answer ‘what is in it for me, the reader, the publisher, the editor and the art director’. The industry needs academia to be on the forefront of the future—to be learning from our past, not living in it.

When I read some of my colleagues’ writings and discoveries for things that have been taking place for years, I can’t help but to wonder why our industry leaders do not use our research in their works and daily discussions. We can’t continue this disconnect with the industry. Yes, we are academia, but we should be in the service of our students first and the industry second. It can be done without having to sacrifice one on the alter of the other.

Our magazines, newspapers, the entire media field is screaming for help. Do not bury your heads in the sand and pretend that it does not matter to you. You and your relevant research are needed now more than ever.