In the end, it wasn't the sex with a source but the admission she shared unpublished stories with him that caused Wall Street Journal reporter Gina Chon to resign from the paper. Chon, you'll remember, carried on a relationship with Brett McGurk, the Obama administration's pick for ambassador to Iraq, when they were both stationed in Baghdad in 2008. They're married now, but they weren't then, and their flirty emails told the story of their relationship in embarrassing detail including references to "blue balls," among other things. In a statement announcing Chon's resignation Tuesday, the Journal said it "found no evidence that her coverage was tainted by her relationship with Mr. McGurk." But it did have a problem with her "acknowledging that while based in Iraq she violated the Dow Jones Code of Conduct by sharing certain unpublished news articles." As The Atlantic Wire's Alex Abad-Santos pointed out last week, it was a probably a bad idea to use her work email and WSJ signature while corresponding with McGurk about their fling.

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Adam Martin