Concern about Olivia Nuzzi’s 9 Month Affair with RFK Jr is Not Sexism

New York magazine editor-in-chief David Haskell told staff in an email that reporter Olivia Nuzzi’s relationship with RFK, Jr lasted nearly 9 months and that they learned about it before she came clean. In other words, Nuzzi didn’t tell them about it; they found out in another way.

“Among other things, Haskell told staff that the relationship lasted nearly 9 months, ended a few weeks ago, and that management only learned about it this week; He also confirmed that they learned about it before Nuzzi came clean,” The Wrap reported.

According to Haskell, NY Mag “learned about the personal nature of Olivia’s relationship a few days ago. She told us it began in December, 2023 (after we had published her November profile), and it ended towards the end of August; she says it was never physical, and that she avoided him as a subject and source during that period.”

New York magazine has already claimed that Nuzzi’s relationship didn’t impact or bias her reporting, but she was reporting on RFK, Jr’s political opponent President Joe Biden as well as covering former president Donald Trump, whom many thought might pick RFK, Jr as his running mate.

Additionally, Puck News (via Daily Beast) reported Friday evening that while a Kennedy spokesperson claimed there had only been one meet up, there were actually multiple meet ups, “Nuzzi allegedly sent ‘demure’ nudes of herself to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during their ‘sexting’ affair… The outlet also reported that while Kennedy’s spokesperson said they had only met in person once, that there were actually multiple meet-ups.”

Nuzzi is on leave while a more thorough review is conducted.

Some among the political class are suggesting that focusing on Nuzzi’s lack of ethical disclosure is sexism.

As someone who’s covered conservative and liberal women being subjected to professional sexism for over a decade, it’s important to point out that being held to professional standards is not sexism. It’s also not partisanship to expect ethical professional standards to be upheld.

Consider how sexism manifests in both negative and benevolent forms: “Sexism is a form of prejudice that specifically subordinates women to men. The theory of and research on ambivalent sexism — which encompasses both attitudes that are overtly negative (hostile sexism) and those that seem subjectively positive but are actually harmful (benevolent sexism) — have made substantial contributions to understanding how sexism operates and the consequences it has for women. It is now clear that sexism takes different forms, some of which can be disguised as protection and flattery. However, all forms of sexism have negative effects on how women are perceived and treated by others as well as on women themselves.”

Protecting someone who has chosen for nine months to continue deceiving readers and her employer because she’s a woman is an example of “protective” sexism. It’s changing the rules as an act of benevolence, but it harms other women.

Hiding behind accusations of sexism makes it harder for women to make legitimate claims of sexism and infantilizes (some) women. That is to say, women who are in the club and uphold patriarchal norms are given a lot of leeway that is not given to women of color and other women, notably e.g., women identified as feminists. This leeway is then weaponized against women who are not playing that game, to suggest they can’t handle their job.

The issue with Nuzzi’s actions isn’t that she had a non-physical affair; the issue is that she had that affair with a source she reported on and while she reported on his opponent and potential running mate.

The issue also isn’t that Nuzzi had an affair with a married man; that’s all on RFK, Jr, who has a long track record of cheating on his wives. This isn’t about their personal morality or decisions within and relating to their personal relationships (she was engaged to Politico’s Ryan Lizza at the time of the RFK, Jr affair).

This is about trust in reporting that helped shape and define an entire presidential race. Nuzzi’s write-ups on Biden were scathing indictments of his cognitive abilities and personal character, as well as his appearance, which she –ironically!slyly! compared him to overfilled (usually) women! — used to suggest he was not trustworthy. She wrote:

“His face had then an uncanny valley quality that injectable aficionados call “low trust” — if only by millimeters, his cosmetically altered proportions knocked his overall facial harmony into the realm of the improbable. His thin skin, long a figurative problem and now a literal one, was pulled tightly over cheeks that seemed to vary month to month in volume. Under artificial light and in the sunshine, he took on an unnatural gleam. He looked, well, inflated…I tried to make eye contact, but it was like his eyes, though open, were not on. His face had a waxy quality…”

This is what passes for unbiased political reporting. It reads like a middle school burn book. Nuzzi told the Young Turks that criticism of her work is a result of Democrats not wanting to hear what she presented as the ‘truth’ about President Biden.

While writing scathing gossip about Biden, Nuzzi also spoke on a panel about how RFK, Jr should have been included in the debate. She also advocated for RFK, Jr to get Secret Service protection, asking DHS why he didn’t have it and suggesting in her customary gossipy innuendo way that the Democrat leading the agency was biased against Kennedy.

This is called advocacy on behalf of the candidate with whom she was having an undisclosed, romantic relationship. Examples:

These tweets also show either an astonishing lack of understanding about politics for a political reporter (streams on X are meaningless politically and the numbers are not considered reliable by anyone with even cursory knowledge about the platform under Musk) or more bias in terms of how she chose to present information as helpful to the man with whom she was having an undisclosed affair.

Her bias was obvious back then:

It’s only now that we understand the reason for the bias, and that reason matters. It calls into question how much legitimacy should be given to her unnamed sources, rumor-based reporting, and personal takes based profiles. Is her take on Biden’s face coming from a neutral standpoint as the romantic partner of a political rival?

As I’ve been writing for over a decade, sexism and racism go together. They are both deployed by the same people to the same end; upholding the white, wealthy, male patriarch. So it wasn’t surprising to see the chattering class also defending Nuzzi’s tweets referring to Obama as a “Kenyan anti-colonial” and White House “intruder” as “jokes.”

Nuzzi wrote for a conservative blog and has expressed admiration repeatedly for conservative media and political figures, which only adds to the idea that these tweets were not jokes. For instance, she has expressed admiration for Ann Coulter, who went on a racist tirade against Republican Nikki Haley during the primaries. Racism is not a joke. Her tweets are not what ironic tweets mocking the Right for their racism against Obama look like.

Before the cancel culture people get started, it’s not that no one can tell a joke anymore; it’s that jokes should be funny and if they’re ironic, then they should make a point about how absurd what they’re mocking is. Her Obama tweets didn’t do that. Have we all had a bad tweet that failed to make its point? Yes. But Nuzzi has a plethora of racist tweets, followed by the conservative hashtag at the time, “#tcot.”

The concerns being raised are not about Nuzzi’s appearance or her gender. No one has suggested that because she’s a woman she is incapable of doing her job or that her sex life has any bearing on her qualifications. No one suggested that her engagement to Lizza meant she wasn’t qualified or that she used him to get ahead and wouldn’t have a career without him (these are things regularly said by the Right about Harris right now, for example). If those were the narratives, then sexism would be at play. But they aren’t the narratives.

This is about a reporter who for nine months misled her employer and jeopardized their credibility as well as misleading readers and giving people yet another reason not to trust journalists at a time of a profound crisis in trust for the news business.

It’s highly unlikely Nuzzi will lose her career; in fact, this will just be another footnote in a long career. Expect to see her in the future leading a town hall for Donald Trump or RFK, Jr.

If Nuzzi’s career had been based on speaking up for women and other minorities, it would be over already. Luckily for her, the boys on the bus will always defend the girl who plays the same game they’re playing.

Conflating a consensual affair with sexism is harmful to other women who raise sexism as an obstacle. This is an example of sexism being weaponized against all other women journalists, with a carve out for Nuzzi.

Accountability is not sexism, and changing the rules for one woman in an act of white knighting benevolence harms other women professionals. Women are not children. They don’t need to be protected from the consequences of their own actions.

Absolutely do defend all women from actual sexism, sexual harassment and abuse; they need all of the allies they can get. But this isn’t sexism.

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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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