Groklaw reports that the Senior Editorial Staff of LinuxWorld Magazine resigned (Senior Editorial Staff of LinuxWorld Magazine Announce Resignations). Journalistic ethics in action, although according to one of those who resigned, their positions were unpaid.

MONTVALE, New Jersey, May 14th, 2005 --- The entire senior editorial staff of LinuxWorld Magazine has today announced that they will be leaving the magazine, effective immediately.

The following statement was released by the group. “We regret that Sys-Con Media has been unable to apply a standard of journalistic ethics that we can comfortably operate under. We feel that recent articles published with the consent of Sys-Con Media fail to meet minimum generally accepted journalistic codes, and because the management of Sys-Con Media has failed to acknowledge that the articles are by all informed judgment ethically unsupportable, we have decided we must find other avenues for our work.”

The resignations stem from the publication of a piece by Maureen O'Gara that provided a good deal of personal information about the semi-anonymous journalist behind Groklaw. The original article is no longer available, but you can read Groklaw's response here: Intimidation.

The Editor-in-Chief of LinuxWorld Magazine (who hasn't resigned, apparently) essentially apologizes here: The Editorial Staff Of LinuxWorld Magazine Would Like To Set The Record Straight.

Read on for statements from those who have resigned ...

James Turner, former senior editor didn't take kindly to an interview with the CEO of Sys-Con (the publisher) ( Some Interesting Info on the FreeSoftwareMagazine Interview).

Just had a long conversation with Tony Mobily, who did the interview with Fuat that appeared in Free Software Magazine. Tony feels really bad about this course of events, because his intent was to give Fuat a chance to tell his side of the story and explain his actions. In fact, he even sent the transcript of the interview to Fuat and gave him a chance to redact and revise his statements before publication.

So Fuat was given every possible chance to present his arguments in the best light possible. That the end result seems to have blown up in his face just makes it more interesting.

Dee-Ann Leblanc, former Gaming Industry Editor of LinuxWorld Magazine, also cites the interview as part of the resignation decision (Resigning from LinuxWorld Magazine:

I am writing this letter to tender my resignation. I have worked hard on LinuxWorld Magazine since its inception, and really don't want to walk away from it as it continues to build up a good head of steam, but given recent events I just cannot continue to be associated with SYS-CON. The complete (and public) lack of understanding of why O'Gara's maelstrom article was wrong, among other things, suggests to me that my sense of ethics is simply too divergent from SYS-CONs and there will be further heated clashes in the future.

Please don't bother to accuse me of bowing to "intimidation from the community." Anyone who looks through my body of work sees that I really have no problems saying things that need to be said. I've had my share of unkind moments on Slashdot. The only thing I am bowing to is my own sense of frustration and futility. [link in original]

It is with some sadness that I've had to resign from LinuxWorld Magazine. Over the past nearly two years I've worked with a group of people with whom I've developed a great rapport and friendship. We were unpaid editors but we devoted a lot of time and energy to it nonetheless. It was a great experience for me and I look forward to other opportunities as they arise.