Filed under: Cult of Mac, Apple
PC World editor quits over Apple story
This story on Wired blog is interesting. About a month ago the former CEO of Macworld Magazine, Colin Crawford, took over sister magazine PC World and just recently put the kibosh on a story idea for the latter: "Ten Things We Hate about Apple." According to Wired's anonymous source: "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." This prompted the editor-in-chief of PC World, Harry McCracken, to resign in protest. The Wired story continues: "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." Supposedly when Crawford was still at Macworld, "Steve Jobs would call him up any time he had a problem with a story the magazine was running about Apple."So clearly the implication is that Macworld is a sort of Pravda of Apple, Inc., and kept in line by upper management who kowtow to Cupertino. So what do you think? Does this make you suspect the objectivity of Macworld Magazine?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Moose said 2:08PM on 5-03-2007
Having worked with many magazines on the behalf of advertisers, it doesn't come as any surprise that magazines print fluff articles the more you spend on advertising. Not that I am condoning it, as I believe that honest critique definitely improves the brand, but it is common practice in almost any industry rag.
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Rich said 2:13PM on 5-03-2007
I have always felt that it was painfully and awkwardly obvious that Macworld was a fluff source that served more as a catalogue for mac products than a useful, objective source.
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How-toVideos.com said 8:20PM on 5-03-2007
No shit really? You mean to tell me that advertisers are putting pressure on Macworld to run positive stories? Gosh golly who woulda thunk it.
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Catt said 2:16PM on 5-03-2007
Drats and I just subscribed for another year.
Heck I like the shiny front covers...
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Christian Calzadillas said 11:42AM on 5-04-2007
Does this make me suspect the objectivity of Macworld Magazine? You bet it does!
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Tom Strong said 2:24PM on 5-03-2007
He should have been fired just for proposing such a lame article. "Ten Things We Hate about Apple." What a piece of hackwork.
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mike said 2:25PM on 5-03-2007
I miss MacUser.
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wildsoda said 2:30PM on 5-03-2007
The thing to remember with the majority of mass-market magazines is that they exist less to bring information to readers than to bring readers to advertisers. That's where they make the majority of their money, and so for a majority of magazines, advertising often trumps editorial.
I stopped buying Mac magazines years ago simply because a monthly title has at least a 2-month lead time, and everything I saw was old news to me since I found I could get the most up-to-date information online.
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Bucky said 2:40PM on 5-03-2007
Any publication that accepts money from a corporation (advertising, or otherwise) is suspect if they write an article about that corporation. Macworld simply should not accept money in any form from Apple if their issue will contain any sort of mention about Apple or Apple products. The mere "impression" of impropriety or conflict of interest (whether true or not) should be enough for the editors to know better.
However, in corporate America, money speaks louder than anything else. That said, any publication like Macword, PC World, or others of their ilk, should be considered non-serious journalism and the editorials considered of questionable legitimacy.
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Christopher Price said 2:38PM on 5-03-2007
It's been long held in the informed Mac community that Macworld has received preferential treatment, in exchange for preferential coverage.
I think this just make more of a case for that existing belief.
- Christopher Price
http://www.phonenews.com
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Churry said 2:39PM on 5-03-2007
No, I never thought Macworld was or expected it to be objective.
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Micah Neumark said 2:45PM on 5-03-2007
I think we all know that these magazines have become increasingly irrelevant in the age of the internet. I still check MacWorld.com daily for updated news, but why would I get the magazine when its a month out of date?
To answer the question, I thought they were always biased towards Apple for sure, but I didn't realize that would extend to all advertisers. Sheesh.
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Floyd said 2:46PM on 5-03-2007
I know it really isn't, but 'Harry McCracken' sounds like a prank-call name and every time I say it out loud I laugh a little.
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Karl Childers said 2:46PM on 5-03-2007
This isn't unexpected. look up Noam Chomsky for reference.
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umijin said 2:52PM on 5-03-2007
MacWorld has been sadly too pro-Apple in the last 2 years, at least. Look at ratings for all of Apple's hardware. You can't find one under 4 mice.
http://www.macworld.com/products/apple/
Macs are great, but not all models rate these marks. And given how far behind the latest video iPods are, compared to other PMPs- it's stunning they would give them such high marks too.
But I'd have to say I enjoy Chris Breen's work very much.
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Bratling said 2:54PM on 5-03-2007
"Does this make you suspect the objectivity of Macworld Magazine?"
Let me see... No, no I'd have to say that *reading* Macworld makes me suspect its objectivity.
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joecab said 7:54PM on 5-04-2007
When was the last time one of these Top Ten lists was remotely funny?
Still, I hope it gets posted somewheres so we can decide for ourselves if it was killed to keep Apple happy or because it stunk on ice.
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enegue said 2:56PM on 5-03-2007
PC World has been a reliable source of tech news for nearly 25 years. Their readership has come to depend and trust their editors. Printing negatively oriented articles with "worst" or "hate" (especially in the wake of Virginia Tech) in the title is not responsible journalism. It could have been worded differently. That would have changed everything.
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Johnny said 3:06PM on 5-03-2007
You all know how us Apple fanboys are; We have a hard time saying anything bad about Apple that might give haters some ammo. Plus, we just love our damn platform so much, we're usually more than happy to ignore any downfalls. I think MacWorld writers/editors are the same way. However, I'm sure the fact that Apple pays a chunk of their paycheck doesn't hurt either.
Anyway, I find MacWorld to be for very novice users. The articles, letters to editor, etc. are all extremely basic and uniformative. Occasionally, I would learn something or find products for the mac that I wasn't aware of, but I eventually cancelled my subscription. In it's defense, however, I miss it a litte. They were nice momentos - a chronology of Apple history.
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Johnny said 3:09PM on 5-03-2007
You all know how us Apple fanboys are; We have a hard time saying anything bad about Apple that might give haters some ammo. Plus, we just love our damn platform so much, we're usually more than happy to ignore any downfalls. I think MacWorld writers/editors are the same way. However, I'm sure the fact that Apple pays a chunk of their paycheck doesn't hurt either.
Anyway, I find MacWorld to be for very novice users. The articles, letters to editor, etc. are all extremely basic and uniformative. Occasionally, I would learn something or find products for the mac that I wasn't aware of, but I eventually cancelled my subscription. In it's defense, however, I miss it a litte. They were nice momentos - a chronology of Apple history.
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