Nikki Finke, a longtime entertainment business reporter and founder of the popular Deadline Hollywood website, will no longer write a recently announced politics column for the website Mediaite.com, Mediaite founder Dan Abrams confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
Instead, Finke is identifying herself as senior editorial contributor of entertainment and media for Penske Business Media publications.
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Abrams announced in November that Finke was joining his site to write about media and politics. The column was set to begin sometime after the new year, and after the announcement, Finke changed her Twitter profile to say she was a columnist for Mediaite.
But as of Wednesday, her profile no longer said that and now identifies her as senior editorial contributor of entertainment and media for Penske Business Media publications, which reflects the decision to cancel the project. The cancelation was her decision, a source told the Examiner.
“Nikki is a great addition to any site and while I’m sorry to lose her, I salute Jay Penske for paying what must be big bucks to steal her away before she even started,” Abrams said.
Penske publications include Variety magazine and Deadline Hollywood, where Finke will presumably be published the most in her new role.
This marks the return of Finke to Deadline Hollywood after she and Jay Penske, owner of Penske Media Corporation, engaged in a bitter and public business feud in recent years.
The feud — it spilled into the public in 2013 — waged over Finke’s editorial and business control of Deadline Hollywood, which Penske purchased from her in 2009. When the two finally parted ways, Finke, contractually forbidden from writing entertainment news elsewhere, started her own blog publishing Hollywood fiction.
But after the announcement by Dan Abrams in 2016 that she would write a political column at Mediaite, Penske’s lawyer sent a legal notice to Abrams threatening legal action, citing Finke’s non-compete agreemeent.
Finke declined to comment to the Examiner.
