Nikki Finke may best be known for chronicling the writers strike minutiae, but she's also earned a reputation as the litigious type, filing lawsuits against her condo company (2001; settled for $36,267), News Corp. and Disney (2002; settled), and now E-Trade, which she's accusing, in a class action lawsuit filed in 2006, where she is the only defendant, of illegally taping a conversation where she disclosed personal and financial information. Sound familiar?

It should. Last year, Finke (though she's "Nikki Greenberg" when filing lawsuits) rammed Women's Wear Daily after reporter Jacob Bernstein supposedly taped a conversation between them without telling her. Her complaints got the interview spiked from the paper's website. Uninformed telephone recordings are illegal under California law.

Not illegal: Forgetting to tell readers that the law firm you've hired to take on E-Trade is also one whose clients you've vociferously defended on your website.

An otherwise flattering WWD piece from Jacob Bernstein about Nikki Finke had to go down the crapper simply because "a legal question about whether one blanket 'yes you can tape [the conversation]' covered all subsequent follow-up interviews." The since-removed column (reprinted elsewhere) credited Finke with breaking all sorts of industry news – garnering the sort of attention and influence most bylines crave – and painted her as a strong and principled lass who doesn't have time for corporate bullshit. (Should we all be so lucky!)

It was Bernstein's alluding to Universal Studios prez Ron Meyer and former HBO chief Michael Fuchs being two of her most worthwhile sources (she's friends with both) that got him in the most trouble … but, um, who doesn't rely on knowledgeable insiders time and again?

After the piece ran, a slew of Finke-fueled WWD corrections followed "WWD made several corrections" before the story was ultimately removed from WWD.com. Tomorrow, says Keith Kelly, the industry trade will announce it stands by its story, but will keep it offline because of the whole "off the record" issue. (An issue that has more to do with not wanting to deal with this debacle any longer than it does with certain conversations being labeled OTR.)

The notoriously enterprising Jacob Bernstein sics his fangs into the new Times public editor, Clark Hoyt, in today's Women's Wear — and he's not letting go until he at least has the scent of blood. After all, Hoyt is a newspaper veteran who's gone on record talking about how the newspaper industry could be facing its demise, and here he is in a new gig waxing critical about the Grey Lady! It's sport.

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