I am going to give The Daily the benefit of the doubt and assume that the woman in the “peppermint Toyota Yaris” is indeed Nikki Finke, “the most powerful—and elusive—woman in Hollywood.” Then I am going to go back to my day. But not before wondering: who could give a hoot?
Oh right, media types.
The Daily is getting its first real big bout of press since launch today because it has apparently managed to snap a shot of the un-snappable Finke—the widely read and widely despised Hollywood showbiz blogger. Why is this a big deal? Well, as Daily gossip maestro Richard Johnson writes: “Many others have tried to photograph Finke, including The New Yorker, which published a 7,794-word profile of the power broker in October 2009. Gawker.com even offered a $1,000 bounty for her picture that same year, as Nikki’s likeness became the veritable Holy Grail of Hollywood gossip.” She doesn’t want people knowing what she looks like yadda yadda yadda. And now everybody has a new image to stick onto their dartboards.
It’s also the culmination of a quest upon which Daily staffer Hunter Walker set out following the Sundance Film Festival. The Observer reports: When Daily reporter Hunter Walker (formerly of The Observer) ran into her boss, CEO of Mail Media Corporation Jay Penske, at the Sundance Film Festival last month, he told him he planned to obtain a photo of Finke.” And now he has. And kudos to him for doing so. (Full disclosure: Walker is a former classmate, current friend, a great reporter, and all-round good time.)
And yet. Let’ not get carried away here. Joe Pompeo writes at Yahoo:
Whether Finke is indeed the women in the photo remains to be confirmed. But that’s largely beside the point: The Daily, which relies heavily on blogs and social media traffic to diffuse its tablet-native content on the web, has claimed its first genuine scoop.
But that’s also beside the point. Here’s the question that’s smack bang on the point: isn’t it depressing that the first big scoop from Rupert’s great black tablet-sized hope is a picture of a blogger in a Toyota? The future is looking bright and pepperminty.
Joel Meares is a former CJR assistant editor.