Who is the British Olivia Nuzzi and why do I think it is a man

let those without sin etc etc

Is it a crime to be a 31-year-old, contrarian leftist, successful, gorgeous woman in political media who flirts with conspiracy-obsessed right-wingers?

I always wondered and didn’t even have to wait for my 31st birthday to find out.

Olivia Nuzzi, a political journalist from the US, got placed on leave from New York magazine after admitting to having a personal relationship with RFK Junior. No bodily fluids were exchanged, but apparently, they were emotionally entangled over texts. At the height of their fetishistic romance, they had FaceTime sex, and Olivia sent nudes.

Americans, known for their measured reactions, lost their shit over this. British hacks, meanwhile, were texting their American colleagues, asking what the big deal is, “If you’re not sleeping with someone in a position of power, how are you even a journalist?”

And me? Fresh out of party conference season (diary out later this weekend) -I haven’t stopped laughing.

Let’s lay down some facts first.

Call me a FREAK, but I find people who are both very successful and very good-looking to be utterly irresistible.

I also have a soft spot for female grifters (if you can’t love yourself, etc.).

Olivia broke into national media when she was still in college. At just 20 she dropped out of college to cover the Presidential elections. Also, she looks like this:

Hey Olivia, if your career in DC flops because you sexted an old, anti-vaxer Kennedy, I guarantee you will be well-fed in London.

The fake feminists of America who only support women when they are sad, wounded and miserable, but never when they are sexy and thriving, were frothing at the mouth at how badly this reflects on female journalists.

On one of the main PC/NPC¹ podcasts, the host expressed their fear and frustration that Olivia’s action introduced the expectation of sex when journalists were looking for stories. Excuse me?

Firstly, there are already measures to prevent forced sex,it is called ‘The Law’.

Secondly, have you met any journalists? The ones I know tell me people are not exactly lining up to send them nudes.

I also agree with Ben Smith:

“Reporters have all sorts of compromising relationships with sources. The most compromising of all, and the most common, is a reporter’s fealty to someone who gives them information. That’s the real coin of this realm. Sex barely rates.”

The Good Feminists claimed that this story introduces an expectation of sex. As a warm-blooded foreigner observing the comings and goings of the Midland/Pullman/Hyatt lobby during party conference season for about a decade now, let me reassure you: it is not an expectation; it is a mutual fantasy.

Look, this is unprofessional behaviour. Of course, it is, and if you are a journalist, you must inform your editor if you have a relationship with your subject. Olivia said the relationship started long after she filled her deep dive into Bobby.

People are nakedly scandalised because of a hefty amount of professional and personal jealousy about this lady's memoir-to-Hollywood pipeline life.

Most people’s seed oil poisoned libido could never lead them to the twisted mental space that led this woman to feel compelled to send nudes to a man she is ideologically opposed to and biologically unsuited for.

The more accurate criticism is that this is the worst of access journalism. Journalists get their stories through personal links rather than professional relationships—flirty texts over dry emails.

Journalistic standards are genuinely higher in the US, and you can tell from the quality of much that comes from there. I do not frown upon that. I subscribe to the Atlantic!

In the UK, this is a problem. Hacks openly brag about being friends with SpAds, and many major stories broke from this chumminess. A standard way political stories get printed is that people brief against their enemies or in favour of their allies. Hacks are expected and often do their due diligence to check, but still, the selection process naturally breeds a bias for the orally and emotionally incontinent.

The aspect of this I unequivocally despise is that a lot of our news is reduced to gossip about people rather than policy analyses. This leads to intellectual lightweights pub-crawling their way to the top. It is why a lot of journalists who thrive in British politics are not policy nerds who comp through parliamentary debates with a fine toothcomb but alcoholics who have learnt to avoid self-hatred settling into their bones when they go to bed by queuing for yet another round at the Two Chairmen². It is usually there, just after last rounds are announced, that the penny drops- or rather, the gobs open.

While I agree with the critics that print journalism's loss to the shiny internets means there is insufficient quality reporting and too many shallow opinion pieces, I think all kinds of journalists are needed—or, if not needed, desired ;-).

You need the nerds to do your policy stuff, good for them, pat pat, crunch your numbers. And then you need your LOVERS, your poets, to keep you dreaming.

Pay your subs to Matthew Yglesias and our British version, Sam Freedman. When you are done with the nerds, stop by the Human Carbohydrate to get whatever it is each of you gets from reading this (no judgment).

Reading a dictionary is the only way to get accurate facts. Everything else is narrative. All history is subjective.

The best journalists can observe the emotional quality of politics. Personal relationships are the structures upon which political careers are birthed and euthanised. You can’t have an autistic nerd reporting on that.

I am biased because, as a Greek, I like people who are a little bit weak in the knees and a bit corruptible—the type who’d cave when their 3-year-old asks for ice cream.

That type, like Olivia, could not help but fall in love with a guy whose life she poured over for months.

There are two types of people in media and politics.

People who delude others and people who delude themselves.

Pretending that you can be a journalist without getting emotionally entangled is hypocritical.

I would argue that Olivia is a great journalist BECAUSE she went there. Not despite of it. Since 2016, the liberal establishment has been scratching its chin trying to understand why the mob voted for Trump. Here comes a woman with Democrat credentials and an enviable liberal elite career, who, despite her pedigree and bright future, has the capacity to feel and allows herself to act on urges that contradict her values.

The Washington establishment could not understand why the deplorables were enamoured with RFK. Well, if there is one woman I trust to explain it to me, it is Olivia.

The mother of all advice writers, Heather Havrilesky said it well: “the world would be much more exciting with more Nuzzis around, but alas the world is inhabited by anonymously emailing moralists instead!”

Is falling in love with your sources wrong? Yes. 

But do I get it? 

Put me on a cross and call me Jesus, never got anything more.

1. Politically Correct/Non-Player Character

2. famous watering hole in Westminster