Friedman likes Nikki *

Marketwatch media columnist Jon Friedman got columnist-blogger Nikki Finke to come out to lunchdinner with him in Santa Monica and calls her "a rarity at a time when many entertainment writers are either too awed, ill-informed or lazy to do serious reporting on Tinseltown. In fact, no writer relishes taking the rich and famous down a peg as much as this LA Weekly print columnist/Web journalist."

While journalists pride themselves on having a natural skepticism for figures of authority, Finke's prickly distrust for many of them practically borders on disrespect, if not outright disdain....

"If there's an open wound, I'm going to pour salt in it," she told me over dinner in Santa Monica. "Nothing makes me happier than following a puff piece. The more people fawn, the more I go in for the kill."

Sometimes, though, in 20/20 hindsight, it could look like Finke misfired and ended up shooting herself in the foot. Consider how she skewered Arianna Huffington in May 2005: "This website venture is the sort of failure that is simply unsurvivable. Her blog is such a bomb that it's the movie equivalent of Gigli, Ishtar and Heaven's Gate rolled into one. In magazine terms, it's the disastrous clone of Tina Brown's Talk, JFK Jr.'s George or Maer Roshan's Radar."

When I gently pointed out that HuffingtonPost has gone on to become a hit, Finke was unrepentant. "Arianna failed when it came out," she clarified. "She changed the formula and it wound up becoming successful."

[skip]

Jesse Oxfeld, a Gawker co-editor, who admires Finke said: "I think what makes Nikki so compelling is that she's clearly at least a bit crazy -- and you can never quite figure out if it's good crazy or bad crazy. She's a great reporter and a fun writer, and God knows I wouldn't want to be on her bad side."

She wants to be buried at the Marilyn Monroe cemetery in Westwood and nominates an epitaph: "'She told the truth about Hollywood.'"

* Finke objects: She says Friedman was too hard on her—and unethical too. She writes a letter to Romenesko:

I find it shameful that Jon Friedman has chosen to write such a misogynist piece that trivializes me and what I do. It begins with a bit-o-praise, then proceeds to dissemble me. No mention of my extensive journalism background. No mention of my recent award. He wouldn't have dared write an article like this about a male business journalist working for a mainstream newspaper. Several comments attributed to me were uttered by Friedman, while others were post-interview phone chatter put on the record by him contrary to our agreement. In several places, my quotes were taken out of context, and some of his own comments are not supported by the facts. Everyone knows how hard it is to craft a serious career and reputation, and how easily it can be undone by an article like this.

No, she really isn't happy.