“Colleagues at my former outlet, PC World magazine, have told me that Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken quit abruptly today because the company’s new CEO, Colin Crawford, tried to kill a story about Apple and Steve Jobs,” Kim Zetter blogs for Wired.
“The piece, a whimsical article titled ‘Ten Things We Hate About Apple,’ was still in draft form when Crawford killed it. McCracken said no way and walked after Crawford refused to compromise. Apparently Crawford also told editors that product reviews in the magazine were too critical of vendors, especially ones who advertise in the magazine, and that they had to start being nicer to advertisers,” Zetter writes.
Zetter writes, “Crawford was former CEO of MacWorld and only started at PC World about a month ago. According to the PC World source, when Crawford was working for the Mac magazine, Steve Jobs would call him up any time he had a problem with a story the magazine was running about Apple.”
“The source didn’t know the specifics of what was in the story Crawford wanted to kill but said it was nothing new. ‘It was supposed to be light fare, just really innocuous stuff. The same kinds of things people have said about Apple before — things that teased Steve Jobs,’ he said,” Zetter writes.
“I reached McCracken on his cell who, from the sound of the background noise, seemed to be leaving the MacWorld party as we talked,” Zetter writes.
Zetter writes, “He didn’t want to discuss the details of why he resigned but said he quit ‘because of some fundamental disagreements with Colin.’ He emphasized that he wasn’t fired or forced out and holds no ill feelings toward the company… He said he actually resigned yesterday, but workers found out only about an hour ago. When asked what he’ll do now he said, ‘I’m going to blog and freelance at least for a while. I’ll probably write for PC World by the way. I want to make clear that I’m a huge admirer of what PC World does and I’m not leaving hoping that PC World will collapse with out me. I’m sure it won’t collapse without me.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Twilightmoon” for the heads up.]
As Zetter writes, a “Ten Things We Hate About Apple” article certainly would be “nothing new.” Sheer boredom. Which is hopefully why Crawford killed the article. (For the record, we’d say the same if it was supposed to be “Ten Things We Love About Apple” — how many of these lame love/hate list articles do we need?) The rest of this blog report contains some stuff that may or may not be related to McCraken’s resignation from an anonymous source that may or may not have an ulterior motive to paint Crawford in a bad light. We also have McCracken’s take on the whole thing, which sounds a lot less conspiratorial than Zetter’s unnamed PC World source.
So, good luck in the future to whomever deserves it.
And, yes, we do still wish that Harry’s name was “Phil” instead.
I grew up with a kid named Christopher Cox whose dad was named Harry!!
True story…
First again, two days in a row
Get on it guys, you chatter boxes, type up whole essays in response to this slag.
Oops some one beat me to the submit button, my bad, i take it all back
MDN word “Serious”
As in serious, i mean it
MDN take … I’m sure that’s why so many McCracken Moms veto Dad’s choice of the name.
DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page Pod Cast
Mac-related … sounds like a rather light excuse to get unemployed over.
Passed over? Anyhow, I learned awhile back, that the big conspiracy is that there are very few of them.
You’re right about the same boring articles over and over again. I quit buying all Mac mags after seeing the article ’20 ways to speed up your Mac’ for about the 50th time. It also didn’t help that their ‘Latest News’ features are full of stuff I had seen on MDN a month earlier. These guys have rested on their laurels for too long and have failed to compete with a faster and punchier online medium. ‘Ten things we hate about Apple’ just shows their total lack of creativity.
On the name game, I was in the book store last night and saw George Tennet’s book, and got me to wondering….if he named his son Lou, and then Lou joined the military, he could be
Lt. Lou Tennet
Kinda like Major Major from Catch 22.
haha Phil McCracken… good one
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
two Scottish homosexuals – Patrick Fitzgerald and Gerald Fitzpatrick
So much speculation.
Until and unless we see the article–unlikely–no one knows if it was killed because it might offend Apple or because it wasn’t up to snuff.
It seems far more likely–but we don’t know–that it was simply an overdone concept than Apple would be horribly offended by it. There have been many list of reasons to hate Apple in the past.
In London there’s a local TV news reporter called Chris Peacock
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”LOL” style=”border:0;” />
I guess it won’t be Harry around Colin in the staff meeting…….
OK, enough of that!!!
All credit to any editor who throws unimaginative articles in the bin. Magazines of all types are full of unoriginal stuff that we’ve seen before. If McCracken chooses to quit over such an inconsequential article, then there is either much more to the story than we’ve been told, or there is something profoundly wrong with his judgement.
But what I find very alarming is Craword’s decree that reviewers should be less critical of manufacturers who advertise in his magazine. That’s a sure-fire way of making sure that no review can ever again be trusted. How can anybody trust a review that’s not impartial ?
Magazines are becoming increasingly marginalised by the Internet. You can get news and opinion much more rapidly from the ‘net. The only two things that I think a magazine is still able to offer are impartial reviews and tutorials. Crawford has now eliminated one of those from PC World magazine. It’s now merely a vehicle for advertising and the advertisers call the shots.
Great another hack writer out of a job.
I suppose his next story will be 10 things I hate about my life.
1. I suck at writing anything new and interesting
I wish his name was Zak.
At University, used to have a math professor called Mrs. Assman. Always thought her surname was bit to, how should I put it, gender specific!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
Have you seenmy posting under the Sails headline? Similar to this one except the article has actually been published.
Oh for sure, mister Steve Jobs is an enlightened Apple ruler ! Nothing democratic on !
And nobody gives a rat’s ass that this hack resigned either. Who reads PC World anyway?
My RE teacher was was Richard Roydes. His daughter was Emma.
Emma Roydes,
Do women not get tired of endless ‘How Great Is Your Vagina’ type articles?
min mac me
so if he took her somewhere, it was
Dick & Emma Roydes….
>I grew up with a kid named Christopher Cox whose dad was named Harry!!
I knew a lady in sales who went by the name of Carey Hunt. And that’s also a true story.
Even if the article was boring or whatever, I don’t think it’s the CEO’s place to be making editorial decisions.
Paul Harvey
Was she married to Mike Hunt?
a mccracken finally got munson’d.