AAN News

New Yorker: Nikki Finke is 'a Combination Town Crier and Volcano God'new

Finke gets the New Yorker profile treatment this week in a nearly-8,000 word piece with the subheadline: "Why Hollywood fears Nikki Finke." Finke says the story is "an amusing caricature, only occasionally true but hardly insightful." She adds: "Still, I'm relieved that The New Yorker didn't lay a glove on me. I found Tad Friend, who covers Hollywood from Brooklyn, easy to manipulate, as was David Remnick, whom I enjoyed bitchslapping throughout but especially during the very slipshod fact-checking process."
The New Yorker | Deadline Hollywood Daily  |  10-05-2009  10:10 am  |  Industry News

David Carr: Nikki Finke is a 'Digital-Age Walter Winchell'new

"In the three years since she started Deadline Hollywood Daily," Carr reports in today's New York Times, "her combination of old-school skills -- she is a relentless reporter -- and new-media immediacy has made her a must-click look into the ragingly insecure id of Hollywood." Finke recently sold the website, which she owned but Village Voice Media hosted, to Mail.com Media for an undisclosed sum.
The New York Times  |  07-17-2009  11:59 am  |  Industry News

MMC Buys Deadline Hollywood Daily, Plans Expansionnew

Mail.com Media Corporation (MMC) has purchased Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily for an undisclosed sum. The website, which grew out of Finke's "Deadline Hollywood" column in the L.A. Weekly, has earned praise and awards from colleagues and industry insiders over the past few years and reportedly receives more than 10 million monthly unique visitors. MMC says that within 90 days, Deadline Hollywood Daily "will become bicoastal with the hiring of a New York City-based senior journalist who will report to Finke." MMC owns and operates the Mail.com portal and email service as well as the websites HollywoodLife.com, MovieLine.com and OnCars.com. MORE: Read more from the New York Times, Gawker and AllThingsD.
Deadline Hollywood Daily  |  06-23-2009  9:37 am  |  Industry News

Variety Parent Company Offered to Buy Nikki Finke's Blognew

Finke reports that her "Deadline Hollywood Daily" blog, which is hosted by L.A. Weekly and celebrates its 3rd anniversary this month, was eyed by the CEO of Variety parent company Reed Business Information, but the deal didn't go anywhere.
Deadline Hollywood Daily  |  03-24-2009  12:50 pm  |  Industry News

L.A. Weekly Wins Five Best of the West Awardsnew

The Weekly's winnings in the annual awards "designed to reward journalistic excellence" in the 13 states West of the Rocky Mountains included two first-place awards: Nikki Finke's "Deadline Hollywood" column in Special Topic Column Writing, and Tim Foley's "The Case of the Dogged Detective" in Illustration. "Nikki Finke is a badass. Period," say the judges comments. "Good stuff, written with passion and an utter disregard whether any of the studio heads, or anyone in 'the industry,' will ever buy her lunch." The judges say Foley's "stylistic comic book illustration, creative use of color and the comic book-like typography all worked so perfectly well together in this illustration ... Foley did a fantastic job of bringing it all together."
First Amendment Funding Inc. Press Release  |  05-16-2008  9:34 am  |  Honors & Achievements

L.A. Weekly Dominates Entertainment Journalism Awardsnew

The paper finished first in four of the six categories for which it was eligible in the LA Press Club's inaugural National Entertainment Journalism Awards. Nikki Finke swept the online categories, winning first for Best News Story, Best Feature Story, and Best Critic. Ella Taylor took first for Best Critic in print, and Finke also finished second for Best News Story in print.
LA Press Club  |  02-22-2008  12:54 pm  |  Honors & Achievements

Nikki Finke Takes a Breaknew

"I'm exhausted. I'm not feeling well. I'm overwhelmed," the L.A. Weekly columnist writes. She says she will return next Tuesday. Her blog has become the go-to source for news on the writers' strike, and she's reportedly been working nearly around the clock since it started. "I need a week away from the emails and the comments and the phone calls and the rumors. Most of all, I just need to rest since I've been going, going, going, since the strike started."
Deadline Hollywood Daily  |  01-15-2008  8:37 am  |  Industry News

Nikki Finke Named 'Media Mensch of the Year'new

In crowning her as such, the New York Observer thanks the L.A. Weekly columnist "for reminding us that all good journalism comes, first and foremost, from obsession." Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily site has become the go-to source for coverage of the writers' strike, and has made this a defining moment in her career. "The biggest entertainment story of the year has also turned into the biggest story of Ms. Finke's career," the Observer reports. "She's demonstrated that one determined reporter -- with none of the support or backing of a media outfit, but also none of the entangling alliances -- can, in fact, beat the big guys at their own game."
New York Observer  |  01-02-2008  1:05 pm  |  Industry News

Writers' Strike is Gold for Nikke Finke's 'Deadline Hollywood Daily'new

The L.A. Weekly columnist's website "has supplanted traditional media as a primary source of strike news" for many, the New York Times reports. She's even been invoked in picket line chants. "Variety and The Reporter stink. We get our news from Nikki Finke," Ugly Betty writer Bill Wrubel chanted. Since the strike began, Finke has written 142 posts about it, the Times reports. She said she had worked almost around the clock for three weeks, and had fallen asleep at the computer four times. "It's been brutal, but it's also been exhilarating because I love news," she says. "I love it -- a scoop is better than sex." More on Finke from Bloomberg News.
The New York Times  |  11-26-2007  9:54 am  |  Industry News

Finke Signs New Agent After Ovitz Bio Cancelednew

Nikki Finke's "long-awaited biography" of Hollywood superagent Michael Ovitz was picked up by The Martell Agency only days after the LA Weekly columnist's book deal was canceled by a Warner/Hachette imprint, reports Authorlink. "The Man Who Wanted Everything," which was originally due to be published in July 2007, has been in the works for 15 years, according to the site.
Authorlink  |  12-07-2006  4:14 pm  |  Industry News

Finke: Profile Started Dialogue About Sexism in Journalismnew

Deadline Hollywood  |  06-30-2006  11:29 am  |  Industry News

Nikki Finke Pours Salt in Hollywood's Wounds

"Finke's prickly distrust for (figures of authority) practically borders on disrespect, if not outright disdain," writes Jon Friedman, who also says "nobody writes tougher stuff than this L.A. Weekly scribe." Finke says she's different than other reporters who cover the movie industry because she focuses on business, not celebrity, and because she could care less about what Tinseltown royalty thinks of her: "I write mean -- end of story. I'm unapologetic about it - end of story. I watch out for the shareholders -- end of story." UPDATE: Finke responds on her blog that Friedman "wouldn’t have dared write an article like this about a male business journalist working for a mainstream newspaper." She also accuses him of attributing his own statements to her and printing her off-the-record remarks.
06-28-2006  8:29 am  |  Industry News

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