Nikki persuades another editor

The editor's note on page 34 of the new Vanity Fair caught my eye (well, after it was pointed out to me): "In Bryan Burrough's 'showdown at Fort Sumner' (December), Nikki Finke's column should have been called a 'Hollywood business column and Web site' and not a 'gossip blog.'" I can just imagine the communication between Finke and VF. She doesn't even like being called a blog, and jumps aggressively — nothing wrong with that — on any journalist who characterizes her in a manner to which she is not accustomed. In July, remember, she got Women's Wear Daily to pull a story it had already published and to run a cryptic editor's note. Finke, by the way, has announced she'll go a little lighter on her coverage of the WGA strike for the holidays.

Also in VF: Nancy Jo Sales lands in January with her take on the "golden suicides" of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. On the Vanity Fair website is a link to Duncan's 1999 animated film, The History of Glamour. Also in the issue, Matt Tyrnauer checks in to David Geffen's new Malibu Beach Inn, which is actually more Pacific Coast Highway than beach. The eye candy of the issue, besides Duncan and Blake, is provided chiefly by Katherine Heigl.