PC World Editor Returns, CEO Demoted

k1980pc writes "In a nice twist to the recent discussion on Slashdot, PC World editor Harry McCracken has returned to the magazine. In turn, Colin Crawford has been removed as PC World's CEO, where 'he will be responsible for driving IDG's online strategy and initiatives in support of our web-centric business focus' ... safely out of the way of the magazine editors. McCracken was pleased to return to his position: 'I'm thrilled to be back with the PC World team. IDG is a company I've loved working for over the past 16 years, and one with a remarkable history of enabling editors to serve our customers--the millions of people who depend on our content online and in print.'"

Comments

yuupp...

[Mockylock]

With a name like "McCracken" you can't go wrong.

Re:yuupp...

[PhilipMckrack]

What's wrong with Phil?

and the obvious question is...

[DriveDog]

why wasn't Crawford removed from IDG's employ, period?

Re:and the obvious question is...

[Volante3192]

Cause he probably has one sickening golden parachute...like every other CEO at a big company. (Home Depot anyone?) Cheaper to throw him in a closet than fire him I wager.

Re:and the obvious question is...

[badasscat]

why wasn't Crawford removed from IDG's employ, period?

So your argument is that experienced, generally skilled employees should be fired after their first mistake?

Glad you're not a boss at my company... you'd be boss of an empty building pretty quick.

Re:and the obvious question is...

[sqlrob]

If the first mistake was to destroy the company's reputation or do something take down every server, damn straight I'd expect an employee to be fired.

Re:and the obvious question is...

[queenb**ch]

I have to second this. It's not about removing someone for "making a mistake." It's about recognizing unscrupulous and unethical behavior and removing that type of person from a position of power and influence in your organization. Keeping him in an equally important and probably well paid spot sends a dangerous message to the rest of the staff at IDG. "You can sell out all you want. If you get busted the only thing you'll get is a new job title."

I don't know about you, but I were running what I wanted to be a well respected publication, he'd have been gone so quick he'd have left a hole in the air in his office. Not just tastefully reassigned to another place with out any real punishment for his actions.

2 cents,

Queen B.

Re:and the obvious question is...

[isdnip]

It's not clear what role he will really have. These "strategic" positions may be important, or they may be what we used to call "special projects". That was the term used at a certain large company I once worked for... when a manager was relieved of his duty. These senior-level guys don't get fired. It never happens. Their "special project" typically means being quietly invited to find a new job elsewhere.

Re:and the obvious question is...

[Asic Eng]

Third, really, what's the big deal anyway?

The big deal is, that US society is now so morally bankrupt that we don't even worry about blatant unethical behaviour anymore. As long as lying and cheating results in someone profiting from it, it's not just fine and dandy - it's all but required! So if you ever take a job in which you somehow have to interact with the public you'd better get used to lying, cause if someone tries to force you into unethical behaviour, the public will be on his side. If something mildly inconvenient happens to him because he's found out - well then the public will feel sorry for him.

Re:and the obvious question is...

[LWATCDR]

He is a CEO he gets the big bucks so mistakes are not tolerated.
Besides he made more than one mistake.
1. To suggest slanting reviews to favor advertisers.
2. Not listening to his editors when they said that was a mistake.
3. To not back down when an editor said he was going to resign if the policy was not changed.
4. Not seeing the backlash if the reason for the editor resigning was made public.
5. Not understanding about this thing called the Internet and blogs. If he had then he would know that it would be made public.
6. Not finding a way to cover it all up and make nice with the editor.

Re:and the obvious question is...

[PCM2]

Colin Crawford no longer has a position directly overseeing the PC World/Macworld group. It's not a matter of a "golden parachute"; he has been moved into an executive role at IDG, the parent company of those publications -- which is where he came from in the first place.

To explain, IDG is a very large publishing company with properties and subsidiaries all around the world. It also remains privately held, something which is often touted as an advantage, given how turbulent publishing can sometimes be. The philosophy of Pat McGovern, the founder of IDG, is to take a very decentralized approach. Each publication is its own business unit, under the larger umbrella of IDG. So when I worked at InfoWorld, for example, we had our own CEO and our own vice presidents (a ridiculous number of them, in fact) -- all of whom were ultimately responsible to the Big Execs at IDG, but whom were given a certain amount of autonomy to run the business as they saw fit. IDG requires that all business units report on their financials, obviously, and they all have to explain how they plan to meet various proscribed fiscal goals for each year/quarter. If the plan doesn't add up, IDG will recommend adjustments. But, pretty much, the IDG model recognizes that the market for each content topic is going to be different and its various business units need to have flexible enough models that they can succeed in their chosen niches. The only disadvantage of this model is that IDG business units sometimes can't collaborate with each other as well as they might wish to -- they don't really share resources, so they're often reluctant to invest in something that will benefit other books as much as their own.

So, that said, Colin Crawford is no longer CEO of a business unit at IDG, but he remains an executive in the IDG umbrella organization. I understand his new title is executive vice president of online. Prior to becoming CEO of PC World/Macworld, I believe his title was senior vice president of online. So it sounds like he's kind of been given his old job back, with a little perfunctory upgrade in title.

I say good riddance. The guy sounds like a real creep. But, to be charitable, firing him probably wouldn't be the right thing to do. In a position at IDG, he no longer has any direct influence over any IDG business units. He's not sitting next to anybody's editorial. And there's evidence to suggest that he really does understand the publishing business. For example, Crawford was the architect behind the cross-company merger of Macworld and MacUser ten years ago -- and though you might have preferred one or another before the merger, it probably saved both of them at a time when the Mac market wasn't quite as hot as it is now.

Re:and the obvious question is...

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Hell yes. If someone's paid X times what a grunt worker is he damn well ought to be X times as good. If a big salary isn't justified by big responsibility, what is it justified by - nice hair?

Re:and the obvious question is...

[Bloke down the pub]

His job was to bring in the most amount of money possible to his company from his customers.

For the benefit of a poor oik what clearly don't have a top-notch MBA like what you has, can you explain how driving the readership down by destroying the mag's credibility achieves that goal?

The customers are his advertisers.

The readers aren't? Even accepting your assertion, aren't advertising rates roughly proportional to the circulation/readership?

Punishment

[iansmith]

I'd rather see the former CEO be a former employee rather than just move him to another important position.

But, at least they did something.

Re:censorship tag?

[cyphercell]

PC World Editor Resigns When Ordered Not to Criticize Advertisers - From the first link.

Score one for the good guys

[gyranthir]

Integrity on the Product Review space is hard to find at any time. I think PC World did a good thing to bring this guy back.

This seems staged

[macz]

If your magazine was suffering from the problem of "Review Inflation" that many outlets seem guilty of, what better way to recover integrity than by the old "Quit in a high profile way -> Get rehired -> Bad Guy Demoted" scenario. Especially since the CEO is still drawing a fat paycheck.

Harry McCracken?

[basic0]

You mean all these years I've been registering software and joining websites while unwittingly impersonating the editor of PC Magazine?

Good for him!

[Rob T Firefly]

While it's always heartwarming to see someone stand up for a principle like this in such a dramatic manner, it's even nicer to see it actually pay off for him in the end.

I hope IDG gave him a sufficiently good deal to get him back, because it would have been very much worth it for any of their competition to snap him up and brag loudly about it.

what a pleasant surprise

[KarmaOverDogma]

It's nice to see that, every once in a while, companies see the value of an honest opinion having *some* parity with the advertising dollar.

maybe other will follow this positive example, from time to time.

Take a bow, Slashdot, you probably influence this.

[mollog]

To the guys who run slashdot; take a bow. Without being nasty, you made some accurate and justified criticisms of the goings-on that led to the resignation. Nice to see that magazine do the right thing and restore some of their integrity.

This practice is alarmingly common

[SilentChris]

I posted this on the original story but it bears repeating...

People act as if this is uncommon. I'm alarmed that people have reacted in this way.

It's very common.

I used to freelance for a large, well-known video game site (not hard to guess which -- there's only a couple). This was back when CD games were first introduced, and a lot of companies were experimenting by cramming as much video as they could onto a disk (with no respect to video quality, acting, and especially gameplay).

Anyway, a company came out with something particularly wretched. Basically some "video game" where interacting involved pushing an arrow key on your keyboard every 10 minutes or so while actors hammed it up. I bluntly gave the game the lowest possible score and walked away.

A few months later, I get an email from editor. The game's maker wasn't happy, and they were threatening to pull advertising from the online rag. Now, the editor didn't say "change the review". He just subtetly requested that another review "rereview it" to give a "counterpoint". That counterpoint would be provided by the editor himself.

Needless to say I wasn't happy, but this was a burgeoning new online rag and I didn't have much say as a freelancer.

However, ever notice when sites like GameSpot or IGN go soft on a review for a crappy game when that same company has front page splash rights (they cover the page in their company or game logo)? Now you know.

Re:This practice is alarmingly common

[clickclickdrone]

>It's very common.
Thankfully, not everywhere. Every editor I've worked with (UK) has known exactly where advertising and Editorial meet i.e. they don't. Most eds won't talk to the advertising department period to ensure whatever they print is the truth and not biased by some compnay threatening to pull ad revenue.

Re:I don't think the guy was demoted.

[PhxBlue]

(1) Grow pointy hair.
(2) ...
(3) Promotion!

Re:Take a bow, Slashdot, you probably influence th

[arivanov]

There is a term to this and it is "constructive dismissal". Second highest payback category in an employment tribunal after discrimination cases and usually more successful as it is considerably easier to prove.

Get promoted out of the way, v. 0.10:

[Mr. Underbridge]

Based on the article, it doesn't seem like the guy was demoted. I think he was "promoted out of the way."

Weellll...technically he *was* CEO, so any involuntary change from that would be a demotion.

I have to figure out how to do that...

OK. Here you go.

"Get promoted out of the way, v. 0.10, Underbridge Publishing Co.:

1. Perform technical tasks early/on time, with completeness, but with no apparent insight or skill beyond the obvious.

2. Memorize the "bullshit bingo" manual of technical phrases ('paradigm', 'transformational', etc)

3. Speak in nebulous terms regarding the company's direction that indicate that you "get it."

4. Attain low-level management position.

5. Treat employees like absolute crap, resulting in all of them leaving the company

6. Wait for higher-level management opening within company in marketing, or some other area with hard-to-define performance metrics.

7. Get promoted out of the way in new position.

See? Easy!

This isn't a censorship issue

[DECS]

McCracken had an editorial debate with his manager. The debate was over a pile of made-for-Digg crap stories that were complete rubbish, not over some withholding of investigative journalism due to outside advertiser pressure.

All it proves is that IDG is desperate, McCracken really enjoys publishing "fluff" (as one staffer descirbed the articles in question), and that IDG's fortunes don't come from breaking news or informing readers but rather in manipulating Digg throngs with its sensationalist headlines slapped on non-content garbage. What a great business plan to pursue. I'm sure that will reward the company richly in the future.

Great job McCracken, you now have the capacity to make IDG's magazines worse. Any cred you deserved for walking out has now vaporized.

Harry McCracken and the Apple Censorship Myth

OT: name question

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Which is the proper breakdown of your name: "Bad Ass Cat" or "Bad As Scat"?

"people who depend on our content "

[Anomalyst]

What kind of femtocortex would depend on PC World for anything?
Can you say "overblown sense of self-importance"?
Maybe it is a reasonable resource, (haven't read the rag in years, even so it was far outclassed by BYTE) I would not recommned its use as the sole basis for any PC decision.