2008 Timothy White Award winner: PC World's Harry McCracken

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May, 2008

HARRY MCCRACKEN, VP and editor-in-chief of IDG's PC World, received the 2008 Timothy White Award for Editorial Integrity, the fourth annual recipient of the award and the third winner from IDG. Last year, the award was given to Don Tennant, editor-in chief of Computerworld; in 2004, the inaugural Timothy White Award was presented to Maryfran Johnson, when she was editor-in-chief of Computerworld.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"IDG is a place where editors can be editors," says McCracken. "I get to make decisions of which I'm really proud. "It's a place where an editor can do great things."

And in McCracken's case, those remarks are particularly meaningful. Last spring, with 16 years on the job, he resigned over a particular story that was killed because it was perceived by certain powers-that-be (or, in this case, that were) as negatively impacting an advertiser. Within two weeks--and after tons of industry and reader support and assurances that the church/state separation was alive and well--he returned to his post.

Recipients of the Timothy White Award are chosen because they stand up to outside pressures--whether from advertisers, industry executives, or upper management--that threaten to interfere with the goals of placing readers first and maintaining truly independent, honest, and ethical journalism. "The one thing that you must do as an editor is to serve your readers," says McCracken. "And the one thing that you have in this business is your integrity. So protecting that is always an easy decision for me."

While the award is a personal one--and McCracken says he is "really proud" to have been named the winner--he also says, "I feel that I accepted the award on behalf of my staff, because they believe in this stuff just as much as I do."

Named editor-in-chief of PC World in 2004, McCracken oversees all editorial, product testing, and community for both PC World magazine and PCWorld.com. He also writes Techlog, which appears as both a column in the magazine and a blog on the website. The magazine and the Web site have together won more than 60 editorial awards during his tenure.