Earnings season can bore, but behind some numbers, there's very human drama. Scripps, the home-and-garden media mini-empire, saw profits rise 22.8 percent to $84.1 million in the first quarter, thanks in large part to Scripps Interactive, led by former Yahoo executive Deanna Brown. Her unit swung to a profit of $21 million in the first quarter. A year ago, Scripps Interactive lost $15 million in the first quarter. At Yahoo, Brown, we had heard, choked under the rule of Yahoo media czar Scott Moore, whom some ex-employees called "suffocating." At the time, Brown only told us, "Sorry, not going to get into this." How politic. Numbers speak louder than words, at any rate.

New Yahoo Media czar Scott Moore dropped Yahoo News star Neil Budde from his org chart. Rumor has it he ran Yahoo Food director Deanna Brown out of the company as well; when we asked Brown, now at Scripps, about the incident, she starchily declined to comment. Now we're hearing Moore was responsible for at least one more departure as well.

Scott Moore's career is on fire. The already overtaxed executive is taking over Yahoo's media division. His role has expanded to include oversight of music, TV, movies, games, and gossip site OMG. But a former Yahoo consultant worries that Moore's out of his depth. "[Moore] is a news guy," our source tells us. "He's not really a traditional product person. Scott doesn't really understand a lot of what's going on in terms of how things are monetized these days." And when it comes to managing talent, he says, Moore has a habit of sucking the oxygen out of the room.