Why quibble? Because that's how much rival Hollywood webpreneur Sharon Waxman — who wouldn't mind pushing up the price of websites about the entertainment business — insists the deal is worth. In her story today about Penske's nabbing of magazine editor Bonnie Fuller to run HollywoodLife.com, Amy Kaufman writes at Waxman's The Wrap, "Last month, TheWrap reported that MMC purchased Nikki Finke's blog Deadline Hollywood Daily for a deal totalling $14 million."

Still, Finke is now pulling in one of the largest blogger — excuse us, news website editor — salaries around. And as Carr points out, Finke has her sharp elbowed, merciless, style that she's known for to thank for Penske's millions. One the big debates about Finke's is whether she is a hard-nosed reporter trying to keep Hollywood honest or a recluse ranting on the corner of Journalism and Vendetta?

We've had Nikki's digital spittle on our faces a number of times. And so have many others, like an editor at GQ for instance. This email from Nikki sent to the GQ is one of our is one of our favorite postcards from the stormy isle of Finke:

Subject: Re: LA story
Date: 8/17/2004 3:13:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time

From: Nikki Finke

To: XXXX

You think having an unnamed Hollywood agent talking about poaching unnamed clients is a "get"? I have 300 interviews with real live Hollywood agents ON THE RECORD talking all about stealing clients and naming names, dates, places, etc. not to mention a whole bunch of even juicier stuff. But do you people ever think to actually call me to do an article for you? Noooooooooooooooooooooo....

Because I'm not 24 years old...
Because I'm not making up stuff.

Because I don't live in New York.

Because I don't kiss up to the idiots who decide which stars magazines like GQ can and can't put on their covers.

Because I actually know something about Hollywood.

Here's a thought: Why not ask me to put together the juiciest Hollywood stories I know for your magazine. Oh, you're running late for lunch at Michael's?

How come I'm not surprised.

C'mon guys! Who wants to buy Nikki lunch? As a burgeoning chronicler of the entertainment scene, I have to tell you that judging from this highlight reel Nikki Finke is an absolute inspiration to me. She proves that you can be successful despite your tendency towards spleen venting tirades, outrageous public feuding, intolerable smugness, and overall an contemptuous personality. There's hope still!

Here are his two teases:

At the Vanity Fair party Sunday night, the Bagger bumped into a guy he knows who is involved in all manner of entertainment businesses. The Bagger noted how the man, someone with access to power in all of its manifestations, seemed to be prospering and was looking well for a middle-aged guy; perhaps he had even lost some weight. "What have you been dining on?" the Bagger asked.

"Twenty-year-olds," said the man, indicating the date off his shoulder.

And the producer:

Up in the Hollywood hills, the Bagger was meeting with a producer who has a well-deserved reputation for decency and effectiveness in a business not known for either. They were chatting about this and that when an assistant walked in with a proprietary release schedule from one of the studios, with lots of useful intelligence and data. The Bagger had seen such a document, but was surprised that it was floating around. The producer smiled and said that he sent small gifts to an assistant there on a regular basis. The Bagger, who knows the man as an honorable person, was a bit taken aback.

"Hey, you have to get a little dirty in this town if you want to make it work," he said smiling. "It's part of the place's charm."

The first one really could be anybody, but we like to think it's old David Geffen dating the youngins. And the kindly producer spying on studios? Oh who knows. Let's say... wisdom-crazed superproducer Brian Grazer. Though I don't know that you could call Angels & Demons either "decent" or "effective."

"For those of us who are making work that requires a kind of intellectual conversation, we rely on that talk to do the work of getting people interested," said Mr. Rudin, who produced No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, two Oscar-nominated and critically championed films last year. "All of the talk about No Country, all of the argument about the ending, kept that film in the forefront of the conversation" and helped it win the best picture Oscar. ...

Mr. Lacey added that the [New Times] chain still has five full-time film critics and that worrying about whether each city had its own critic seemed silly at a time when major metropolitan dailies can't afford to cover the presidential race. (The loss of a critic in New York, where some films see their only light of day, would seem to be more problematic.)

We, too, went on the record with Carr today to espouse our only slightly obvious belief in the power of the Web, where much of Rudin's beloved "intellectual conversation" actually took place and where old-schooler Lacey would do well to invest resources as opposed to slashing them. When "new media" like the Internet finally take off one of these days, we'd hate to see such progressive cultural pillars caught ill-prepared.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• Now on the Endangered Species List: Movie Critics in Print [NYT]