PC World Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken says that his talks with IDG (PC World's parent company) unfolded over the last few days, following his surprise resignation, and that he returned to the magazine only because IDG founder and chairman Pat McGovern and IDG President Bob Carrigan both assured him that he would have editorial autonomy over the content.

"I made a bigger statement by leaving than I thought I was making," McCracken told me, "and now I'm making an even bigger statement in coming back because I'm 100 percent confident that PC World will continue to be a place where editors decide how to serve the people who use their content. I would never have come back unless I was completely confident of that."

McCracken says that his talks with Carrigan and McGovern (often referred to as "Uncle Pat" by employees because he flies out from Boston each Christmas to hand out holiday bonus checks in person) were respectful.

"They never criticized me or told me I overreacted," he said. "They were tremendously supportive. We talked for a while about ways I might come back and they were both great about it."

We now know that one of those ways was to remove Colin Crawford from his position as CEO. The company informed the staff of the news this afternoon while the magazine's web site simultaneously posted a story about it.

"We put it up before we told you because we didn't want you to scoop us," McCracken told me.

BTW, word started going around early this afternoon that something might be in the works after a message previously posted on Crawford's personal web page about McCracken's resignation suddenly disappeared.

Here's an image of the removed post as it appeared on Crawford's blog. You can read the text here.