Olivia Nuzzi. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media)
On Monday afternoon, as the political and media class returned to work after the long Thanksgiving weekend, Ryan Lizza lit up inboxes from coast to coast. The one-time New Yorker wunderkind published part four of his ongoing Substack series about his ex-fiancée Olivia Nuzzi, which has raised new allegations of serious journalistic misconduct against the newly installed Vanity Fair West Coast editor. The piece, like the earlier installments, immediately became the sujet du jour of text chains and Signal chats, with aghast media insiders watching the slow-motion saga unfold and trading reactions to the latest revelations.
Of course, while the salacious details of Washington's version of a Bravo-style reality show have generated the most attention and inspired an avalanche of tabloid headlines, Lizza has also credibly accused Nuzzi of serious journalistic transgressions. His third entry, published last week ahead of the holiday, specifically focused on a number of ethical breaches Nuzzi allegedly committed, including betraying confidential sources in service of alerting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to would-be saboteurs in his midst. The piece raised weighty questions for Vanity Fair, currently being steered by new editor Mark Guiducci, as well as its parent company Condé Nast, led by Roger Lynch and Anna Wintour.
Yet despite the mountain of legitimate journalistic questions surrounding the situation, Vanity Fair and Condé Nast have adopted an unusually muted posture—one that suggests…
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