Variety published three separate but similar “Top Stories” Sunday (one - two - three) on the topic of blogs and how certain bloggers (mainly Nikki Finke, pictured) exhibit questionable journalistic practices. What seemed at first to be an excessive, behind-the-times and otherwise forgettable trio of articles has today (and initially last night) become a topic of discussion for many film bloggers, including some who were mentioned in these Variety pieces who felt the need to respond.

My personal response is primarily, as I said, one of disregard. But here’s a quick commentary: I enjoy Finke and others as I might have appreciated Louella Parsons or Hedda Hopper decades ago — with a grain of salt. The fact that some bloggers are taken more seriously for their rumors and faulty reporting styles than, say, any one of the hundred other fanboy movie blog sites out there is the problem of the reader (especially the one who’s a Hollywood player), not the writer.

Though the timeliness of Variety’s blogger-hating trilogy comes on the heel of recent errors and conflicts involving Finke and others, there’s no more necessity in such articles as there would be for a trio of stories about the trustworthiness of Fox News. Don’t read the blog, don’t watch the channel, don’t read the trade magazine if you don’t like their content.

Anyway, I’ve given my two cents; read what others have to say after the jump:

• The Big Picture’s Patrick Goldstein, who is referenced by name in Cynthia Littleton’s article, points out the trade’s hypocrisy regarding blogs’ use of anonymous sources and concludes with an admission of guilt that takes Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart down with him:
  

  Bart’s major point seems to be that blogdom has yet to discover a workable business model, hence its nastiness and desperation. Peter, take it from someone who knows all too well: No one in today’s media, whether it’s my paper or yours or any pajama-clad bogger, has a reliable business model anymore. When it comes to a downward economic slide, we’re all tumbling down the elevator shaft together.

• David Poland at The Hot Blog has some ironic visual aids to also show Variety’s hypocrisy. Then he agrees that Finke is “the scum of the earth,” yet he addresses what the trade really should be concerned with instead of her:
  

  [Finke's] business does not directly affect Variety’s revenues (or MCN’s, for that matter). The question Variety faces is the need for any trade magazine in the internet era with the significant overhead that the paper - and The Hollywood Reporter - carries. And as Bart notes for others, though it is just as true for Variety, this is a given information “news” arena… not a serious reporter’s medium. Some of the very worst reporting on this business has been from reporters who take their work dead seriously… because the rules of Hollywood just aren’t the same. The stakes are lower and the egos are bigger and corporations lie daily in spite of their stockholder responsibilities.

• In Contention’s Kristopher Tapley also chimes against Finke: “She is the 21st Century bad apple and she’s spoiling the bunch…I do hate what Finke is and has been doing and it should be brought up in a certain light.”
• Lane Brown at Vulture somehow agrees with Variety while also agreeing (with me) that the articles are pointless while also feeling the need to respond anyway:
  

  Even though we ourselves are “toxic bloggers”, we’ll certainly concede that many of Variety’s points are valid ones. But it does seem a little weird that they’d use so much energy building a case around what’s essentially a three-headed attack on just one person (a person who’s gleefully reported the trade’s financial troubles and scooped them recently on several major stories). That’s like something a blog would do!

• Similarly, but much lengthier and raising much better points is Cole Abaius of Film School Rejects (a site he admits is more about opinion than news), who believes Variety is wrong and right about film blogs:
  

  Variety is right to raise these questions, and they are right to be concerned while we’re still in this nebulous area of ethics, quality, and mean-spiritedness. But they are wrong to claim that blogs and websites are the only ones causing the problems, wrong to claim that they already see where the future is headed, and wrong to believe that they will survive in a world of new media without getting their hands a little dirty. Luckily, it seems like they don’t have a problem with doing that.

• Kim Masters at The Daily Beast has Finke’s back in a defensive attack against the antiquated Variety:
  

  maintaining a high journalistic standard hardly explains the type of anemic coverage too-often found, or not found, on the pages of either Variety or the Times. Bart’s attack—indeed the whole whiny Variety package—sounds too much like the enraged cry of an old-media dinosaur trying to defend what’s left of its terrain.

• Bouncing off Masters’ piece, Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere adds:
  

  In other words, if Finke was a guy — some kind of tough-talking, finger-poking Walter Winchell-like internet gunslinger — Bart would never have written about how he needs to watch his manners or be more respectul of his elders.

• Lashing back at Masters, David Poland (again):
  

  Masters , like Finke before her blog, is without full employment as a journalist and is writing this piece as a freelancer for another blog that aspires to trafficking in gossip as “breaking news.” Slamming Variety instead of reporting on whether the accusations are factual fits the profile of the person she is defending.

• Still no word from Finke at the time of this Bloggery, but we should probably conclude as Kris Tapley does in a follow-up: “Like I said, it’s going to get ugly. Let’s hope we can make it about the movies again real soon.”

Okay, Kris, here’s something more about the movies to really conclude this roundup:

• Through the ironically timely news that 50 Cent is not actually attached to appear in The Expendables, The Playlist compares “horses mouth source” Sylvester Stallone to Finke: “He enthusiastically confirmed the news prematurely before a contract was signed. Just like bloggers!

UPDATE: Nikki Finke finally responded just after this post went live. In addition to claiming Reed Business Information wanted to buy her site, she has this to say, which sides with my stance on the issue: “Clearly, I’m fair game — even though I’m one person up against entire news organizations. Then again, this month, Deadline Hollywood Daily celebrates its 3rd anniversary and 50 million unique users. I’m still amazed that anyone reads me, much less cares what I write.”