A Cornucopia of Reasons Why Nikki Finke Can't Come to Work
Nikki Finke is an industrious and relentless blogger. But she's not a reliable one. As her readers know, she's given to frequent unexpected absences from her blog. Now that she's making $400,000, we're going to start keeping track.
One of Finke's many charms is the way she has treated her readership like her boss—she'll call in sick via a post, or beg for just a few more minutes to get her thoughts together on breaking news. And as any regular reader knows, she scarcely goes a month without going dark for a day or two for some reason or other, which she invariably explains on her blog in the manner of a harried writer trying to get an editor off her back: I'm down with the flu, I've got jury duty, this damn internet's not working, I had some bad dental work, I broke my hand.
We're all for writers taking time off. And we're in no way prepared to put our own work ethic up against Finke's. But ever since she sold DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com to Jay Penske's Mail.com in a reported multimillion-dollar deal that has her earning $400,000 a year, we've wondered how Finke's frequently erratic work habits would mesh with a real boss, who has investors to satisfy. So we've decided to keep an eye on Finke's "I'm out today" posts, to see what a $400k blogger can get away with.
Last Thursday, Finke wrote that she had been in the hospital by way of explaining a shortage of recent posts. We hope she's OK. Finke has written in the past that she suffers from diabetes, which may explain her frequent absences from blogging (though it hasn't hampered a long and active career that has included stints in Moscow and London for the Associated Press). She seems to have bounced back fairly quickly from her latest illness, with a lot of posts over the weekend.
To put Finke's salary in perspective, we've gone through her archives and put together a sampling—and this really is just a sampling—of her posts offering reasons for not being able to work. We hope that in her new, corporate environment, Finke will find a way to pace herself and accommodate a more predictable work schedule. Because we agree with this blogger, who wrote a post called "Why Hollywood Gets No Work Done" in 2006:
I was shocked to hear that Hollywood types were already leaving town for the July 4th holiday. It's bad enough you guys cancel four straight scheduled meetings with screenwriters. Or have your assistants book appointments six months ahead which you'll cancel anyway. And all without a twinge of guilt. But lately you've become Slacker Town.
Finke is no slacker—anyone who's been on the business end of her reporter's notebook knows that she is not afraid to put in the hours on any given story. But she certainly does seem to cancel a lot of appointments with her readers:
September 17, 2009
September 14, 2009
September 10, 2009
August 12, 2009
July 31, 2009
July 13, 2009
July 9, 2009
July 7, 2009
June 29, 2009
April 20, 2009
April 15, 2009
April 6, 2009
April 2, 2009
March 30, 2009
November 10, 2008
November 3, 2008
October 15, 2008
September 11, 2008
September 4, 2008
August 1, 2008
July 28, 2008
July 9, 2008
June 10, 2008
June 9, 2008
May 20, 2008
May 16, 2008
May 15, 2008
April 23, 2008
April 1, 2008
February 20, 2008
February 12, 2008
January 23, 2008
January 14, 2008
January 9, 2008
December 27, 2007
December 17, 2007
December 10, 2007
November 30, 2007
October 16, 2007
October 10, 2007
October 1, 2007
September 13, 2007
August 13, 2007
July 20, 2007
July 13, 2007
July 11, 2007
July 7, 2007
February 25, 2007
December 30, 2006
December 5, 2006
September 11, 2006
June 12, 2006
[Full disclosure: Your blogger's wife works as an editor at Finke's former employer, Village Voice Media, and occasionally edited her stories.]