Is it fair to refer to Deadline‘s Nikki Finke and TheWrap‘s Sharon Waxman as “traders in gossip”? Whether or not N.Y. Times reporter David Carr created this headline or not, he’s written the following about Finke is a piece that went up last night (6.9): “A spectral figure rarely seen in public, [Finke] makes up for it on the phone and in print. She sees herself as a Jeremiah, a scold and a truth-teller in a business that trades in illusion and lies.

“And while people in the film and television business complain bitterly about her tactics, most of them play ball. As someone who used to cover the Oscar season, I watched again and again as people used her site as the seedy park on the outskirts of town where they sneaked up on others and stabbed them from behind.

“Absent that venal ecosystem, Ms. Finke would be just one more rage-aholic with a modem. But she prospers by exploiting a narcissistic industry that lives on fear and self-preservation. Even given her excesses and mania, Ms. Finke has never pretended to be something she is not, which is more than I can say for the industry heavyweights who complain about her even as they provide her sustenance.

“If it is true that people get the government they deserve, then many industries get the media coverage they merit as well. Regardless of her base of operations, Hollywood deserves Nikki Finke.”