Well, that didn't last long. Feisty Robert MacMillan got a job at the Wall Street Journal after the wire service reporter buttonholed Rupert Murdoch on his first visit to the newspaper the media mogul acquired last year. (MacMillan: "Can you tell me what you talked to the editors about?" To security guard: "Please don't touch me." Murdoch: "No.") The Reuters reporter's impromptu interview didn't elicit any information but his shamelessness seems to have recommended him to Murdoch's lieutenants at the Journal, who hired him in February to cover the media industry for the business newspaper. For a month, at least. MacMillan's Facebook profile indicates he's already returned to Reuters.

Don't assume any Murdochian conspiracy to ruin an impertinent reporter's career. "He just didnt work out," said a colleague. "There's nothing more to it. He chose to quit before things got worse." But Paul Barrett, who'd already left the Journal once to run investigative reporting for Business Week, is leaving the newspaper again after a second stint of just a few weeks. Writes a tipster: "Has the place become so icky in the Murdoch era that people are repelled from its floors within minutes?"