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Harry McCracken is back at PC World, one week after he resigned in a dispute with management over stories that were critical of advertisers.

PC World announced his return in a story on its Web site, in which it also revealed that PC World CEO Colin Crawford will leave that post to return to his prior role inside International Data Group, publisher of PC World, as executive vice president, online. Sources said last week that Crawford pressured McCracken to kill stories that were critical of advertisers, especially one titled "Ten Things We Hate About Apple." McCracken said last week he resigned after a dispute with management, though he declined to offer specifics.

Crawford denied that advertiser pressure played a role in the editorial process in an e-mail to CNET News.com and on his blog. But Wired News reported last week that during a meeting following McCracken's departure, Crawford told staffers that the marketing department would play a greater role in the editorial process and directly contradicted an IDG representative in saying that several stories, rather than the single Apple story, led to the dispute. Crawford's blog post about McCracken's departure can no longer be found on his blog, though Google's cache has preserved a copy here.

Crawford has apologized to the editorial staff for the incident, according to the story posted Wednesday. And PC World has gone ahead and published the story that led to the dispute, which was part of a package that included a story called "Ten Things We Love About Apple."

UPDATE--In a brief interview, McCracken declined to go into too many details about what transpired over the past week, but noted "this is the first good day I've had in the last week." Preferring to move past the details of what exactly happened between him and Crawford, McCracken thanked Bob Carrigan, president of IDG Communications, and Pat McGovern, IDG founder and chairman, for their support over the past few days.

"It became a far larger statement about editorial independence than I thought," he said, referring to his decision to resign last week. "This is an unusual moment for journalists in a good way."

One day after PC World's editor-in-chief resigned over what sources said was a reluctance to mute coverage critical of advertisers, the magazine's chief executive denied that advertisers influence editorial decisions.

Colin Crawford, the president & CEO of PC World Communications and Mac Publishing, wrote in his personal blog that "IDG and I hold editorial integrity in the highest regard," after CNET News.com reported that Harry McCracken informed staffers Wednesday afternoon that he resigned because Crawford ordered him to kill an article that was critical of a major advertiser.

IDG spokesman Howard Sholkin confirmed Thursday that the article was an opinion piece for PC World magazine involving Apple. Wired News reported Wednesday that the article was entitled "Ten Things We Hate About Apple," but Sholkin could not confirm that title.

"Colin did not want the story to appear in the form it existed," Sholkin said. "He spoke to Harry to see how things could be modified." The two were obviously unable to come to an agreement regarding the article, leading to McCracken's abrupt resignation from PC World on Tuesday after 12 years at the magazine and 16 years at IDG. No other issues led to McCracken's resignation, he said.

Crawford did not specifically address the article in question in his blog posting. But he denied that PC World staffers were ordered to minimize negative stories about advertisers. "Independent and trusted editorial is at the heart of everything we do. Serving our readership with fair and unbiased content comes first," he wrote.

PC World staffers were shocked by the sudden departure of McCracken, a well-respected and award-winning editor. In his blog, Crawford said he hoped that McCracken would continue to write for PC World on a freelance basis.

PC World employees had a meeting Thursday afternoon to discuss McCracken's resignation. Wired News' Kim Zetter has a detailed description of what was said during the meeting, which appears to run contrary to some of IDG's official statements. Wired News reported that Crawford told employees that more than one article led to the disagreement, and that while he wouldn't specifically order writers to ease up on an advertiser, he wants marketing to have more influence in the editorial process.