"Flowers can sway me," Penelope Trunk writes on her blog. The first-time Time Magazine reporter set up a photo op with Salesforce's volunteer program and an interview with CEO Marc Benioff. The press-battering exec blew off the interview. As Trunk missed her deadline, she took out her rage on Salesforce's publicist. But she soon got a helpful phone message from Benioff giving her "every quote I could need." It worked. Benioff didn't have to sit through any actual questions but got to recite company lines; Trunk got an easy puff piece finished; and after Trunk sent the story in, Benioff sent her a bouquet. What a charmer. If only every journalist were so easily tractable. (Flowers: M Eriksson)

So, finally, the bottom of the story of the Wall Street Journal's clash with web billionaire Marc Benioff. And it gets uglier. Pui-Wing Tam, the Journal reporter who was investigating the Salesforce.com CEO's Hawaii getaway, was indeed detained, both by Benioff's construction crew and the police. Benioff told the police that she was a stalker. The detention may have been illegal. And Journal brass in New York decided to cut mention of the incident when the article about Benioff's Hawaii complex was published.