That story on Nikki Finke *

I'm told that Women's Wear Daily confirms in today's paper that editors pulled a recent story on Hollywood journo Nikki Finke off the paper's website. (It's not on Lexis/Nexis or Google either.) After questions were raised about the piece, I emailed WWD Editorial Director Edward Nardoza and writer Jacob Bernstein but received no response. This note is supposed to be in the paper, though I haven't actually seen the print edition yet:

EDITOR'S NOTE: A WWD article on Hollywood writer Nikki Finke, published on July 6, page 16, was pulled last week from the paper's Web site, wwd.com. The article, by WWD features writer Jacob Bernstein, depicted Finke as a highly controversial but influential writer in Hollywood circles. The story reflected interviews with more than 40 sources and drew fair conclusions regarding the tone and nature of Finke's ongoing coverage. However, the decision to pull the story from the Web site was based on confusion over Bernstein's taping of a conversation he had with Finke.

I had posted some of the story's more newsworthy claims on Sunday, then deleted them while seeking confirmation that the editors had yanked the story after it ran in print. My first post is here, minus those deletions and a direct quote that for all I know was from the disputed conversation. Of course, if Finke or Bernstein want to comment on the piece (or my handling of it) I'm all ears.

* In the New York Post: Keith J. Kelly reports on the dust-up. Elsewhere, takes from David Poland, Jossip, Kate Coe.