The Media Equation: Despite Report of Her Firing, Nikki Finke Is Still Standing

Anybody who has read Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood, an industry Web site, has seen this kind of public execution. It is a specialty of hers, often backed up by a force field that makes it come true regardless of whether it was to begin with.

Except this time the article was written by Sharon Waxman, who runs The Wrap, a competing Web site, and the person who was reportedly being given the gate was none other than Nikki Finke.

“Nikki Finke has been fired from the blog she founded, Deadline Hollywood, and will be leaving the company as soon as this week, multiple individuals with knowledge of the situation have told me,” Ms. Waxman wrote on Sunday, June 2.

But the news was not followed by the sound of Champagne corks popping in the executive suites Ms. Finke had routinely terrorized for one simple reason: it did not turn out to be true. Ms. Waxman, perhaps driven by wish fulfillment, wrote beyond the facts at hand.

Still, the town is enjoying the moment, watching a knife fight between two industry observers and former pals who clearly can’t stand each other. Ms. Finke has the upper hand, with a closely followed site and a long reputation for breaking important industry news, while Ms. Waxman, whose site has struggled, is clearly punching up.

Ms. Waxman’s decision to begin publishing The Wrap in 2009, with backing from Howard Schultz, the chief executive of Starbucks, was viewed by Ms. Finke as an act of betrayal. The sniping has been remarkable, even by Hollywood standards, but the story of Ms. Finke being fired represented a huge escalation.

There is irony in the moment because Ms. Finke is the queen of the ritual sacrifice, having roasted industry leaders like Marc Shmuger of Universal and Ben Silverman of NBC until they caught fire and ended up out of their jobs.

Ms. Finke is erratic but very effective, using old-school tactics to power a new media enterprise. She and her reporters are direct in telling their sources that if scoops go to competitors, a price will be paid, and that if moguls appear at the conference of a competitor, like The Wrap, they can expect to be spanked. The site and its alerts are on the smartphones of most industry executives because Deadline Hollywood covers the industry’s every wiggle fast and ferociously.

As one who sometimes wore out her welcome in mainstream media — she has worked at The Associated Press, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times and New York Magazine — Ms. Finke found her métier on the Web, where sourcing standards are often thin or nonexistent and the prosecution of journalism is a far less mannered affair.

Ms. Finke’s site was bought four years ago with a great deal of fanfare by Jay Penske, a budding media mogul by way of auto racing.

Mr. Penske, who was eager to add heat and gravitas to a group of marginal entertainment assets, walked into the deal with eyes wide open and has been rewarded with a site that gets significant traffic and advertisements. But he has paid dearly for it, spending a great deal of time trying to sooth Ms. Finke or the targets she has maimed.

Deadline’s dominance over the traditional trade outlets was threatened in 2010 after Janice Min, a New York magazine veteran and longtime editor of Us Weekly, took over another competitor, The Hollywood Reporter. To supplement the publication’s Web site, Ms. Min began producing a visually lush weekly magazine that was very well received. Web traffic and advertising have soared in part because Ms. Min produces much more consumer-oriented entertainment coverage.

In an effort to compete, Mr. Penske bought Variety last year, and what had been a strained relationship between Ms. Finke and Mr. Penske broke out into a very public war. Ms. Finke said Mr. Penske had promised to let her supervise the rebirth of the deteriorating Variety brand, but instead froze her out.

She has been complaining bitterly and sometimes publicly since, including saying in print that Mr. Penske had lied to her. Her frenzy and Mr. Penske’s fatigue in managing same are well-known, but the feud gained visibility because Ms. Finke’s contract, which runs until 2016, allows her an escape that will arrive in 2014. No one knows what the mercurial Ms. Finke might do — clearly not Ms. Waxman, not her boss, and maybe not even Ms. Finke herself.

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