Nikke Finke, of Deadline Hollywood fame, says that in January she was offered an annual salary of $450,000 and a $1 million house in Malibu to become editor-in-chief of venerable trade publication The Hollywood Reporter.

In a piece at dealine.com today [Friday morning, March 26], Finke wrote: "last night, Richard Beckman, formerly Condé Nast’s Fairchild Fashion Group CEO who’s now CEO of THR’s parent company e5 Global Media, [said] "there is no truth to the report" that I’d been offered THR’s editor-in-chief.

"Huh? I’ve gone over my notes, and let me reaffirm that the offer was real and detailed and made to me by one of Beckman’s bosses during a phone conversation on the night of January 13th. It consisted of: $450,000 annual salary for becoming editor-in-chief of The Hollywood Reporter. Plus a $1 million Malibu home which, I was told, "you can keep whether you stay 5 minutes or 5 years" in the job. (Why this? Because I had said that some day I want to buy a Malibu condo with an ocean view.) Plus a sum "roughly estimated" at $650,000 a year for my share of several cable TV deals which e5 anticipated making for THR. And so on. Other people know about this offer, too."

Finke goes on to say that though the offer was lucrative, that she also felt that it was ludicrous "considering how many THR journalists are going to lose their jobs when e5 Global Media transitions the trade from a weekday paper to a monthly glossy magazine, and website operation filled with syndicated content, and cable TV programmer."