From 1997 to 2001, Tatara appeared frequently, as often as 16 times a month, along with the critic who actually appeared on TV, Paul Clinton. In 2002, his workload suddenly dropped to, at most, five reviews a month. There were times in the past that CNN.com editors had told Tatara that the higher-ups weren't loving his work, and more and more the site was relying on Entertainment Weekly, its sister AOL Time Warner publication.

"There were always periods, after nine months or so, when someone would raise a stink about the tone of writing being too conversational, too harsh, too, too, too," says Tatara, who is not speaking in exclamation points at this moment. He's just warming up.

"Especially with the conversational tone. They wanted me to be faceless!"

"It could be that [CNN's] blood pressure was higher, because the site wasn't making money! I had a real readership, but they couldn't care less! They weren't allowing people any real personality! At this point, [CNN] is like the Kmart of news services, and instead of a news flash, they should have a Blue Light Special!"

Geez... that was about the easiest piece of online research I've ever had to do. URLs practically hurled themselves at me.