Nikki Finke, longtime journalist and founder of Deadline, dead at 68

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Nikki Finke, a longtime journalist who founded the Hollywood trade website Deadline, died Sunday after a long illness. She was 68.

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Finke died Sunday morning in Boca Raton, Florida, Deadline confirmed.

Born in 1953, Finke grew up on the north shore of New York’s Long Island and graduated from Wellesley College, according to The Hollywood Reporter. She worked for The Associated Press and later joined the staffs of The Dallas Morning News, Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times.

She eventually served as the West Coast editor at The New York Observer and covered the entertainment business.

She also worked for New York magazine and the New York Post, Variety reported. When the Post fired her in 2002 after she wrote unflattering articles about Disney’s litigation over Winnie the Pooh, she sued the newspaper, News Corporation and the Walt Disney Company for wrongful termination for $10 million. The suit was reportedly settled, according to Variety.

Finke joined LA Weekly as its “Deadline Hollywood” columnist in 2002, according to Deadline.

She migrated to the internet in March 2006, launching Deadline Hollywood Daily after buying the domain name for $14, Deadline reported.

Jay Penske, founder, chairman and CEO of Penske Media Corporation, which bought Finke’s blog in 2009, said the journalist was “memorable.”

“At her best, Nikki Finke embodied the spirit of journalism, and was never afraid to tell the hard truths with an incisive style and an enigmatic spark,” said Penske said in a statement. “She was brash and true. It was never easy with Nikki, but she will always remain one of the most memorable people in my life.”

Finke sometimes butted heads with Penske and she left Deadline in 2013.

Finke focused not only on celebrities but also shined a critical spotlight on studio executives and agents, Variety reported.

Her relentless coverage of the writers’ strike in 2007 and 2008 clinched Deadline Hollywood Daily’s role as a voice covering the entertainment industry.

In 2006, she told MarketWatch, “If there’s an open wound, I’m going to pour salt in it.”

Finke told Elle, the following year that “All moguls are morons.”

In 2009, she told The New York Times, “I’m not mean, I just write mean.”

“I can’t help it! It’s like meanness pours out of my fingers!” Finke once told the New Yorker.

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