THB #233: Nikki Finke is Dead

Writing about Nikki Finke’s passing may be the hardest thing I have to do this year.

She was smart, incredibly hard working, and relentless.

She had no ethics, no perspective, and only a passing interest in the truth.

Most of what you know about Nikki (almost all of you, at least) is mythology.

The thing that brought her to prominence, taking the side of the writers in the WGA strike of 2007, also caused multiple rebukes by the WGA leadership, as she printed what the writers fed her… and then printed what the AMPTP fed her while still appearing to be “pro-writer.”

Nikki worked for a lot of major outlets… and lost her job at every single one of them because of her own failings, ultimately including the one that made her wealthy and famous.

My first contact with Nikki was in 2002, when she sued Fox and Disney, claiming they were colluding against her when she was fired for misreporting the facts around Disney’s ongoing negotiations with the family of the creator of Winnie The Pooh. She s…