The Olivia Nuzzi/ RFK Jr. Scandal Is Goddamn Depressing
Ethics in journalism? Hahahahahahahahaha it's all awful. Plus a sandwich recipe!
I just sent a video of tiny frogs hiding in dahlias to my chat group of gal pals because god knows, everything is fucking terrible right now and it doesn’t seem like we’ll ever come up for air in this godforsaken timeline. Here, take a look — it’ll make you feel ever so much better, I promise:
I’ve also been reposting this fricken’ adorable terrier who goes by the name Lovely Sonsom. He wears a little raincoat with a hood. It’s great. Give him a follow.
Anyway, amidst all the horrifying news this week, a big fat scandal in journalism popped off, and everyone’s salivating over it. I’m as guilty of sucking up all of the juicy details as anyone — a hot young political correspondent, put on leave from a storied magazine because of a sexy entanglement with an erstwhile presidential candidate?! Ooh, yes, tell me everything I need disTRACTions baybee. Give me the hot goss!
That goss, if you haven’t heard (or don’t care about political-slash-journalism scandals) is that star New York Magazine political reporter Olivia Nuzzi was placed on leave after her personal relationship with Mr. Brainworm himself, RFK Jr., came to light after she’d written a profile on him last year, titled “The Mind-Bending Politics of RFK Jr.’s Spoiler Campaign.” Supposedly, she started sexting him in December, after she’d written the article, and they kept on sexting through August of this year. Spicy! Nuzzi came clean to her editors about her indiscretion with RFK Jr. sometime last week, and was put on leave from New York. The publication now has a “note to readers” heading up Nuzzi’s articles that says she violated the magazine’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures, and that they “regret this violation of our readers’ trust.”
Nuzzi has been the Washington, D.C. correspondent for New York since 2017, and is the face of the magazine’s political coverage. Following her profile of RFK Jr., she continued covering the presidential race for the magazine, including a profile of Ye Olde Pussy Grabber that included some of the worst fucking writing I’ve clapped my eyeballs on in a while. Behold the opening paragraph:
Pink. An ovular rose. Big and smooth. A complex commonplace instrument. And, as far as these things go, a rather nice one. Isolated from the head and all that roils therein, and to which it is, famously and miraculously, still attached, you have to admit, if you can: It is beautiful. In Palm Beach, sunlight streamed through the window to find its blood vessels, setting the whole device aglow. Auris Divina, Divine Ear, protector of The Donald, immaculate cartilage shield, almighty piece of flesh.
I mean, what the everloving fuck is this baroque fart of an introduction? But execrable writing isn’t why Olivia Nuzzi depresses me. I am depressed about Nuzzi and this stupid-ass scandal because the escapade has pulled at the threads of how Nuzzi’s career was woven together and unraveled a whole rotten-ass tapestry.
The unfurling of the details has been juicy for those who enjoy toasting metaphorical marshmallows on media flameouts: Nuzzi’s engagement to fellow political reporter Ryan Lizza, the chief Washington correspondent for Politico, is over; her past terrible racist tweets have resurfaced, (she’s so racist it’s pretty unbelievable that anyone has ever given her any job ever, let alone being made the face of a legacy publication, but hold on, we get to the why next!!); and Nuzzi’s former relationship with Keith Olbermann has come to light!
*Facepalm*! So, Nuzzi, bright young reporter that she very well may be, betrayed every woman who has worked her ass off to get ahead by fucking her way to the top?
Fuck my life.
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