This is more meta than we’re used to ’round here, but PC World’s editor, Harry McCracken, just quit the magazine because he planned to write an article called “Ten Things We Hate About Apple.” But we all know that’s it’s actually been made illegal in the past few years to write anything critical about Apple. One of the publisher’s higher-ups caught wind of the article and decided to make a point: stories and reviews have gotten too critical lately. We can’t be running a magazine trying to get advertisers if we’re gonna be too harshly evaluating their products. Kudos to CNET for independently verifying this information.
Honesty, in other words, has no place in technology journalism.
Let’s just say that I’m not entirely surprised. This is a rather wacky game, with the relationships between PR folks trying to get [good] press about their wares and tech writers—supposedly—doing their best to weed through the crap to deliver an honest evaluation.
So the next time you see an article, online or otherwise, about how much a keyboard “rocks,” about how “in heaven” someone is about a cellphone (as if a keyboard could “rock” in the first place, simple tool that it is), keep in mind the source and the manufacturer.
Just be vigilant.
You mean “More Common” right? A “Commoner” generally refers to those not of noble rank or of royal blood.
My Oxford Dashboard widget says “commoner” functions just as I intended it to (”more common”). I do check these things out beforehand, you know.
He knows it’s true, because the “Oxford Dashboard widget” told him so.
I looked up the word common, and am curious. Which meaning did you intend? The only one that seems appropriate is “widespread, general” as in “common practice”. Commoner practice sounds about as correct as widespreader and generaler (Firefox doesn’t flag commoner the way it flags the others, because commoner is a word).
That’s not why I chose to comment. I want to question another word, “we”. I wonder who are the “we” in “Ten things we hate about Apple”. There is also the “we” in “We can’t be running a magazine…”
That’s one of my pet peeves. Too often people use the words “we” and “you” when they should be using the word “I”. I wonder if the higher-ups would have objected to “Ten things I hate about Apple”?
Oh yeah, there is also “Commoner than WE think”. Did you mean, More widespread than Nicolas D thinks, or more widespread than Steve W thinks?
McCracken admitted this was simply a fluff piece. Who needs the same 10 things we hate (or love) about Apple? It’s the same fluff that ever rag seems to publish once a year. How about a _real_ story about Apple?
I hope PC world kills other fluff pieces, no matter who they’re about. As for McCracken, if he can’t handle the fact that re-running the same kind of article ad nauseum won’t cut it anymore, then it’s his choice to be a baby and take his ball and go home. Whatever. I wish him luck, but good riddance. It appears that a dozen years at the rag simply made him set in his ways and unable to adapt.
Who cares about grammar — the point is that ‘10 things I hate about’ articles aren’t real journalism, anyway, and are just a way of trolling for hits from fanboys pro or con, and do nothing to benefit the readers. If McCracken were going to resign, he should have taken a stand on a weightier issue like an actual product review, not a useless puff piece.
Although I still have a subscription to PC world and Wired, I am becomming less and less fond of this media. Blogs such as CG, Gizmodo, and Engadget are much more informative and not influenced by corporate advertisers.
For shame PC world.
killing an article ‘10 things we hate about apple’ is surely editorial discretion and not censorship. A magazine covering technology can make decision to de-emphasize it’s content directed at retards, and direct it’s content more towards the thoughtful who would find this type of dreck distracting. Surely advertisers would like to know their products coverage is not threatened by over exposure to adenoidal pinheads, and more towards the inquirerer who reflects a maturing market. Your assertion that in the future articles about keyboards ‘rocking’ or cellphones ‘ in heaven’ can no longer be counted on…indicates you may be the type of reader PC Mag had decided lowers the tone of almost any magazine, and that you would be best served by popups and ‘You have won a new Acer…!’ banners.
As someone who has worked in publishing, I can tell you that sometimes you don’t go more than two weeks when an advertiser asks for a quid pro quo – and in some genres – like local travel/lifestyle, it’s almost a given. You can pretty much tell if you read a puff piece on some local nightclub and lo and behold, there’s a ad for the place. A lot of “best of” local awards requires the restaurant/bowling alley, etc … to buy some sort of advertising since the newspaper/periodical is calling you up & basically asking for you to buy some space implying that maybe they might not have room for your ‘best of’ category. While I can’t speak for PC mag, most tech magazines tend to review only gadgets/computers that are at least “good,” because if you’re reviewing cameras, why not review a Canon, what’s the point of reviewing a “Frankobar” Camera from Algeria? So, it’s subtle in a way – you could argue that it creates an ad friendly environment but it’s also a product consumers would want to buy … and also there are advertisers that are eager to boycott you for good or no good reasons – after all, it’s their money. Even if your thing is terrible, you can understand why they’re not objective in wanting to hurt you – that’s just the way it is … and in many mag genres, readers want ads – some might remember the heyday of COMPUTER SHOPPER. It was maybe 10 pages of quasi editorial surrounded by literally a thousand ads over 400 pages and people loved it. Geeks could pore over every ad trying to decide if they wanted the 18 MHz chip or the 22 Mhz chip that cost 5% less from a new place in Utah so who is right, who is wrong? It’s hard to tell if the editor really quit over this – maybe he’s mad he was passed over for editor and spent three weeks on a lame Letterman-like feature or maybe it was brilliant and he’s standing 100% on principle … ultimately, the readers decide if PC mag is worth their time. Not every mag is CONSUMER REPORTS and not every mag is VOGUE but there is a place for both.
Um, it would an interesting story if it were true. It seems that McCraken really quit over the running fluff pieces without his editorial control, not because of the subject matter. The Wired article debunked this. You can read about it in an excellent article at RoughlyDrafted.com.
The fluff piece was to be followed by 10 things I love about Apple. Hardly a reason for an advertiser to be upset. These “list” based web articles are meant to drive site traffic, not contain meaningful editorial critiques. You know that.
And now that I’ve succumbed to the same dirty trick used by others to drive site traffic, mainly, responding to gossip, I feel silly. You should too.