Well, I finally made the pages of The New Yorker, my favorite magazine. It's just a couple of quotes in an profile of Walt Mossberg, but I'll take it!
Harry McCracken takes a stand for editorial integrity, leaves PC World in protest
Just read over at Epicenter that PC World Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken quit in protest today because the mag's new CEO wanted to spike a "whimsical article" titled "Ten Things We Hate About Apple." Guess the new CEO didn't want to alienate Apple, and apparently he had been telling editors to be softer in their reviews of products from companies that advertise in the magazine. It's a complete violation of church and state for a publisher to try and manipulate editorial to please advertisers (or potential advertisers), and I gotta say, I support what Harry did 100% and have a tremendous amount of respect for the stand he took. That kind of integrity and honor is all too rare these days. I've been extremely fortunate in that I've never had to face a similiar situation here at Engadget. One of the things I most worried about after I sold the site to AOL is that they'd try to water down the editorial or try and tell me what to do or what to write (or not write). I made it clear to them from day one that I'd never compromise our editorial integrity, and to their credit, no one at AOL has ever tried to interfere with what we write -- in fact, I've never had any kind of discussion with anyone at AOL about what direction our editorial should take, Ryan and I have just run things exactly as we've seen fit.
Harry, I'm sure you're going to be contacted by a ton of publications in the coming days and weeks, but we'd be more than happy to have you with us here at Engadget in whatever capacity you'd want.
Above the Cube
Had a meeting at an office building in Midtown the other day and from the window was able to snap this pic looking down onto the Apple Store on 5th Ave (wish I'd had a better camera with me than my Treo). Funny how impressive the store is from the outside and how collossally drab and boring it is once you get inside.
Joining the board at Rhizome.org
And I also have a tiny bit of news of my own to report: I've joined the board of trustees of Rhizome.org, a non-profit which has been promoting digital art for over ten years now and is affiliated with the New Museum of Contemporary Art (which also happens to have a brand new building going up just a few blocks away from where I live). I've been a fan of the site for years and am looking forward to helping them figure out what role a digital arts organization plays in a world where practically everyone's become a cultural producer.
Judith leaves WIN
Can't believe that it's actually happening, but Judith Meskill is leaving WIN. She's one of the few people actually predates me at the company, and it's truly hard to conceive of this place without her holding down the fort and watching our back. Judith went way beyond what you could ever expect from someone. She put her heart and soul into making WIN great, and just generally set the tone for the entire organization (yes, even more than Jason did!), and I'm excited to find out what she does next!