Reporters at News Corp.'s The Wall Street Journal had a story about the ousting of managing editor Marcus Brauchli all ready to go in advance of his departure, but were ordered by Journal higher-ups to sit on it, according to a source at the paper. That decision, of course, led to the paper getting scooped on its own story. Granted, covering your own news organization is a tricky business. But you'd think they would have learned from making the same wrong move last year when they first got involved with News Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch.

After the embarrassment of getting scooped in their own house, Journal bosses swore it would never happen again. But it has. This time around, the decision went up the chain of command to Alix Freedman, the departmental managing editor in charge of ethics and standards, according to our source. The tipster says that Freedman then called Brauchli for his opinion, who in turn asked Freedman to hold the story-presumably to give him time to finish ironing out the details of his exit-and she obliged.