PC World editor resigns over apparent ad pressure

What's that I smell?  Could it be the waft of dirty laundry that could come out about the PC World publishing business, and other similar organizations?

CNet news has an article (headline below is linked to it) on the resignation of the editor for PC World magazine who resigned because he was being pressured over negative reviews and comments about advertisers of the magazine.

PC World editor resigns over apparent ad pressure

Award-winning Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken of PC World resigned Tuesday over disagreements with the magazine's publisher regarding stories critical of advertisers, according to sources.

Readers (and writers that submitted letters calling the magazines on the issues, only to have the magazines quickly deny the problem) have long suspected that many of the major magazines related to PCs, PC Gaming, Console Gaming, and other electronic entertainment areas were treating advertisers with kid gloves.  With some it was incredibly obvious despite the denials.  With others you had doubts and concerns but not enough clear proof to know.

All because these magazines are always stuck trying to walk a tightrope or balance beam with customers (readers) on one side pitted against customers (advertisers) on the other side.  Both are normally necessary to achieve profitability as publications that are just aimed towards readers typically have to charge outrageous rates for subscriptions while publications that would be nothing but advertisements would lose their potential customers if no one was reading the ads.

Publishers that accept advertisements have to be careful to make sure they aren't attacking the products made by their advertisers, while also providing the service that customers are looking for, including telling them the plain truth about products in the marketplace.  If the publisher doesn't review products honestly, then customers notice it and the reviews wind up being devalued to the point that no one reads them.  Eventually the publisher's words are worthless as readers know that the publishers won't tell them about the products to avoid.

With some publications readers might be able read between the lines and make their own determinations by noting the times when a publisher is following the "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" rules.  For example, the publisher may completely avoid some products in the marketplace that are made by an advertiser while speaking about competitor's products.  If may be incredibly obvious that there wasn't anything good to report about the advertiser's products so nothing was said.

In other cases though it's far less obvious, and much more problematic.  Cases where you read reviews and comments that aren't quite negative, but aren't completely positive either.  Where you are left to wonder if the mediocre review would have been much more harsh and more negative if the advertiser wasn't buying space in the publisher's magazines.  Or, worse yet, you might be left wondering if the review of a particular product had been much more positive if there wasn't a competing product made by an advertiser with deeper pockets and more ad space in the magazines.

Good magazines and publications typically show a lot of independence.  The reviews and comments about products are the straight truth and there's no apparent influence from the advertising department or the ownership of the publishing house.  Those are the types of magazines that deserve the time we would spend reading them, as opposed to publishers that turn themselves into shills for their advertisers and sell their souls to the highest bidders.

It seems that PC World's efforts lately, at least on the management side (above the editor), are much more on the shill side.  Like I said, it has long been suspected that PC World is much more shill than fair and balanced resource.