Mel Gibson Exclusive Impresses Anita Busch, Revolts David Poland

The two most intriguing media reactions to last night’s big exclusive interview with Mel Gibson posted on Deadline.com come from Anita Busch and David Poland. Busch is the former Hollywood Reporter journalist-editor who was targeted by renegade P.I. Anthony Pellicano. In the Deadline comments, she writes:

[Interviewer] Allison Hope Weiner always drinks upstream from the herd. And was the only one to do so during the Pellicano case. Gibson picked the right [Q&A] format and the right journalist to give the interview to.

At the other end of the spectrum is Movie City News founder Poland, who remains one of Nikki Finke‘s harshest critics. After tweeting this for example yesterday – “Dear Deadline, may we please see a list of overcompensated execs that includes a SINGLE source of yours? PS Your info’s as exclusive as H2O” – he went off via his website on the Weiner interview:

Deadline Hollywood paid Weiner for her sycophantic interview with Gibson (no doubt arranged by Gibson’s loyal handler and the Summit PR team that are Nikki’s bestest friends)… Weiner claims she gave the interview to Deadline because, “editors at other media outlets seemed inclined to use this story to pursue their own agendas.”

You mean, like expecting you to behave like a journalist when you get access to someone with a sordid history? I mean, seriously, not a single real question in the entire interview. People might have bought it, but not EW… too soft for EW!… Pete Hammond does a tougher interview.

Nevertheless, the interview has been widely picked up by pretty much every entertainment media outlet… except, at press time, Sharon Waxman‘s The Wrap.

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