Ed Word: The Maximum PC Promise to Readers

Posted 01/24/2008 at 6:30pm | by

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There’s been a lot of Internet hubbub about editorial integrity recently. Exactly what “integrity” means is shifting at many publications—print and online—as barriers between editorial and advertising begin to blur. Luckily for me, Maximum PC still operates under the same rules we’ve had since I started working here more than seven years ago. Lest there be any misconceptions about where we stand, it’s time to reiterate our no-BS standards:

Our editorial and advertising departments operate independently

We maintain complete separation between the folks who create the editorial content and the people who sell the ads. We’re very serious about this, and, in fact, our whole company is structured to protect this separation. I report directly to our editorial director (former Maximum PC Editor in Chief Jon Phillips), and he reports directly to the company president. The germane factor here is that I don’t report to someone in ad sales, and if anyone on the sales team ever wanted to escalate complaints about our content, he would have to go through Phillips, who would take the issue to the president. Thanks to the integrity of our sales team, our church-state separation has remained pure during my entire tenure at Future US.

Maximum PC’s editorial content will be determined solely by the editorial team

We (the editors) determine the content of every editorial page, basing our decisions on what we think readers would be most interested in. The editorial team owns the content from initial conception to final execution, and we are the only ones who edit or modify it. The editorial staff determines which products will be reviewed, and all products are treated equally, regardless of whether they come from advertisers past or present.

Maximum PC will never accept payment for product coverage

Advertisers can’t buy their way onto the cover of the magazine, or anywhere inside it. Accordingly, when choosing hardware for challenges and how-to stories, our decisions are based entirely on product merit and appropriateness.

Our editors won’t take any form of compensation from vendors—be it cash, travel, or extravagant gifts

We don’t take money from vendors, and we don’t accept expensive gifts. We do keep coffee cups and other inexpensive tchotchkes, however, as they make good giveaways. Also, our editors are prohibited from working on advertorial content.

Neither our advertising department nor our advertisers are aware of review verdicts before an issue goes to press

We don’t make vendors aware of verdicts until it’s too late to change them. Likewise, our ad-sales department doesn’t have access to editorial content until after the magazine has shipped to the printer.

Maximum PC will continue to deliver fair coverage of all the products and technologies that you love, free of advertiser influence

Letting you know about great hardware, and warning you off of bad hardware, is why we’re here. We’ll continue doing it as long as you keep buying our magazine and coming to our website.