Bitter Hollywood trade journo feud reignites over ‘stolen’ scoop about AI book scandal

Former TheWrap and Variety reporter Jeff Sneider accused Deadline Editor-At-Large Mike Fleming Jr. of stealing his scoop about an AI-related scandal involving an unpublished debut novel, 'Call Me, I'll Hide The Body,' which was sold to Minotaur/Macmillan for $2.4 million before questions arose over AI use. Sneider posted on X that Fleming 'stole my entire scoop from last night and tried to pass it off as his exclusive,' reigniting a feud dating back to 2013.

This is truly a case of in-Sneid baseball. An old Hollywood media beef is boiling over — again — after former TheWrap and Variety scribe Jeff Sneider , now of the newsletter “The InSneider” , reignited his once-epic feud with Deadline Editor-At-Large Mike Fleming Jr. Advertisement “Mike Fleming just stole my entire scoop from last night and tried to pass it off as his exclusive,” Sneider posted on X last week, before urging Oliver Darcy of Status and Ben Smith of Semafor to cover the brouhaha. “I mean, this is even more blatant than the scandal itself ” Sneider added. We’ve reached out to Fleming, also an ex-Variety staffer, for comment. As for the “scandal itself,” Fleming posted https://deadline.com/2026/07/ai-questions-debut-novel-book-film-buzz-1237013254/ a piece marked “Exclusive” on July 30 for his Deadline column, “The Dish” with the headline, “AI Questions Spoil Book & Movie Heat On Unpublished Debut Novel ‘Call Me, I’ll Hide The Body.'” The story was about how a hot debut novel was sold to publishing house Minotaur/Macmillan for an alleged $2.4 million following a heated bidding war, only to fizzle when questions arose over whether the author used AI to help pen the tome. Fleming’s report said that UTA and Europa Content had been selling the rights, but are no longer involved in the project. Advertisement A day earlier, Sneider had published https://www.theinsneider.com/p/ai-scandal-rocks-publishing-world-and-hollywood-black-author-minotaur-macmillan-auction-uta-tv-show a piece called, “AI Scandal Rocks Publishing World — Will Hollywood Care or Keep Pursuing the Hottest Book in Town?” about the same subject matter, though Sneider chose not to name the book’s title in his reporting. Both Sneider and Fleming’s reports purposely did not name the author. Advertisement The similar pieces also likened the book’s main character to Harvey Keitel’ s infamous “cleaner” Winston “The Wolf” Wolf in “Pulp Fiction.” FWIW, other journos also then got into the act, with Showbiz 411’s Roger Friedman commenting https://x.com/TheInSneider/status/2082879242682114248 on Deadline’s X post of its alleged exclusive, “Jeff Sneider had this last night. It was his story.” But it’s not the first time that Sneider and Fleming have feuded In 2013, Hollywood Elsewhere scribe Jeffrey Wells reported https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/trashed-by-fleming-sneider-makes-big-time/ that when Fleming had read a Los Angeles Magazine story about the battle between Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, TheWrap and Variety, that the venerable scribe mockingly quipped that its writer Patrick Goldstein , “reveals that he has seen the future of entertainment journalism and it is…TheWrap‘s Jeff Sneider?” Advertisement Then in 2014, Sneider accused Fleming of improperly calling a story on Michael Eisner “exclusive” that had been in Variety by the late gentleman journo Dave McNary and told FishbowlNY https://www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/jeff-sneider-mike-fleming-jr-response/ how’s that for a blast from the past? , “Mike Fleming is a f–king loser… I used to look up to Mike Fleming. Now, I pity him.” And a 2016 Observer piece https://observer.com/2016/05/in-cannes-and-in-hollywood-two-hollywood-old-guard-publicists-flexed-their-muscles/ referred to Fleming as Sneider’s “nemesis.” Perhaps after director Joseph Kahn penned an op-ed https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/bring-back-hollywood-asshole-joseph-kahn-column-1236653278/ last week for The Hollywood Reporter, called “Bring Back the Hollywood A–hole ,” an old-fashioned media feud is also just what the doctor ordered? Stay tuned