All too human

You would have had to be wearing noise-canceling headphones this afternoon not to have heard the yaps and yowls of journalism’s Usual Hyenas as they circled in a pack around what they seemed to hope would soon be the carcass of one of their own.  I’m speaking here of Olivia Nuzzi, who was suspended yesterday from her post at New York Magazine for having shared texts “of a personal nature” with the odious Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

An online headline on Wonkette mirrored the attitude of many of Nuzzi’s compatriots as they appeared to wait eagerly for her downfall: “No One at Wonkette Has Sexted or Wants to Sext with RFK Jr. in Case You Were Wondering.”  The ever-salacious New York Post quoted a “source” at New York Magazine as saying, “It’s all anybody is talking about,” and helpfully pointed out that “they weren’t being particularly careful” about their wholly electronic relationship. 

Even more journalistic lip-smacking took place when it became known that reporter Ryan Lizza wrote of Nuzzi today in a statement on Politico, “Because of my connection to this story through my ex-fiance, my editors and I have agreed that I won’t be involved in any coverage of Kennedy in Playbook or elsewhere at Politico.”  Nuzzi and Lizza announced their engagement in 2022 and broke it off “recently” according to reports today.

I hope you will note that Lizza’s ex-communication from Kennedy coverage did not include a similar ban from commenting on Nuzzi, as that was precisely what his statement was about.  Lizza, by the way, was fired by The New Yorker in 2017 for what the magazine called “improper sexual conduct,” which Lizza denied.  He was suspended as an on-air commentator by CNN for six weeks, but then rehired after the network conducted an investigation and found “no reason to keep Lizza off the air.”

Olivia Nuzzi is not a candidate running for office, nor has she been charged with sexual misconduct.  She is a reporter based in Washington D.C. who covers politics for New York Magazine.  She apparently made the same mistake more than a few women have made over the years and fell for a fool with the last name Kennedy.  The relationship, if it can be called that, was reported to have begun around New Years after Nuzzi wrote a profile of Kennedy for New York Magazine in November.  The relationship continued until late August, according to the New York Post.

There is a huge undercurrent of jealousy in everything published about Nuzzi today.  I can tell you from many years in the journalism game that Nuzzi had three strikes against her going into this purported scandal:  she is young, 31; she is talented; and she is attractive.  Here is a photo from Nuzzi’s Instagram showing her at a party under a tent at some chic and exclusive location to which many of the journalists writing about her would love to have been invited:

Kennedy, 70, is married to actress Cheryl Hines, and is a known conspiracy theorist who has spread unfounded rumors that people have died from receiving the COVID vaccine, among other outlandish lies. And that’s just for starters.

Nuzzi is being criticized for mentioning Kennedy’s name in four articles she wrote for New York Magazine since their online tryst began.  It has also been reported that Nuzzi did not inform her editors of the online relationship with Kennedy, which was “a violation of the magazine’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures,” according to a statement by the magazine’s editor, David Haskell.  Articles on the magazine’s website by Nuzzi now have a disclosure containing Haskell’s statement about her.

This has been a week that included a firestorm of lies by Donald Trump and JD Vance about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio eating cats, and there were revelations about North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s online sex-life.  He was found to have called himself a “Black Nazi,” expressed a taste for “tranny on girl” porn, signed up for Ashley Madison, the online website for married men seeking affairs, posted that “slavery is not bad” on a porn website called “Nude Africa,” and claimed he would be a member of the KKK if “they let Blacks join,” and  would call Martin Luther King “Martin Luther Koon.”

In other words, it’s not a slow news week, and yet the internet has blown up over an apparent online affair between reporter Olivia Nuzzi and RFK Jr.  There is something seriously wrong with this picture, and it’s not just the typical navel-gazing that journalists enjoy engaging in when they find an issue involving one of their own.  The name, Kennedy, is of course at least partly to blame – any story involving a Kennedy is bound to blow up, especially if the story involves a member of the opposite sex who is not his wife. 

This is rank sexism and scandal mongering.  You would think that people who live and work in glass houses would know better, but n-o-o-o.  It’s still 1959 in the august halls of American journalism. The D.C. press corps and the New York City journalism rumor mill should be ashamed and get back to work.