PC World McCracken back in, Crawford Out

In a surprising but welcome move IDG has removed compromised editor Colin Crawford from PC World and gotten Harry McCracken to come back and do what he does best. Write stories about issues in technology that people want to read regardless of if they are flattering to the company being written about or not.

In a surprise reversal, IDG management removed Colin Crawford as PC World’s CEO and reinstated Harry McCracken as Editor in Chief, after a dispute over a canceled Apple story led McCracken to quit. A memo just sent to PC World and Macworld staffers by IDG president Bob Carrigan states that McCracken “has decided to remain with PC World.” Source: Wired

Wired leads the story with a small snippet about the whole thing, but the good part is that publicly, and after another round of Digg Bait this week, it is excellent to see IDG take a welcome and excellent action when it comes to their reporters.

In a time when many are questioning traditional media, and traditional media is trying to find themselves in the Web 2.0 blogging world, the IDG episode gives a lot of creadability towards IDG, its intentions, and its ability to give good impartial information to IT decision makers, movers and shakers.

While we would really like to know why the decision happened, we will just sit back and be happy with the decision, and start reading a lot more PC World in the future. They have something that they didn’t have before this event, a well documented street creadability that will go a long way in increasing their readership.