Vanity Fair Hires RFK Jr.’s Boo Olivia Nuzzi Because Journalism Is Dead

I know that eons have unfolded since October 2024, but some of us with working long-term memories still remember the Olivia Nuzzi scandal, as Dave Levitan so eloquently titled it for us at Splinter, “D.C.’s Scuzziest Media Scandal Marches Toward Its Inevitable Conclusion.” Nuzzi was a politics reporter for New York Magazine at the time, and they let her go after it was revealed she had an improper relationship with RFK Jr., a man she had written profiles about during the relationship and who had fully been absorbed into the Trump campaign by the time the revelations broke.

”Since that news, first reported by Oliver Darcy in his Status newsletter, every new revelation has gotten seedier and uglier than the last,” Dave wrote. “There are reports of leaked nude photos and hacked phones, restraining order claims and counterclaims from Nuzzi and ex-fiancé Ryan Lizza of Politico, and more.”

While all that was enough for New York Magazine to show her the door, Vanity Fair is apparently excited to hire a classic example of someone too horny to be a journalist, announcing today that they are bringing Nuzzi on to be their new West Coast Editor. I’m sure the fact that Nuzzi has proven she intimately knows people in our new autocratic regime had nothing to do with it. I can’t help but note in light of this decision that Vanity Fair is rumored to be part of the apple in Jeff Bezos’ eye, as one report that Bezos’ spokesman denied rumored that he wanted to buy Vogue as a wedding gift for his new wife Lauren Sanchez. Unnamed sources claimed that he has “deep enough pockets” to purchase its parent company Conde Nast that owns many other magazines like Vanity Fair.

I can’t really articulate this absurdity and insult to the basic tenets of journalism better than the collective response on Bluesky from people in a dying industry, so here’s a sampling of what media folks think of this hire.

Naming a person who has spent their entire career working a 200-mile stretch of I-95 as your West Coast editor is certainly a choice.

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— Bradford Pearson (@bradfordpearson.bsky.social) September 18, 2025 at 2:07 PM

as a woman i am simply not being sloppy enough.

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— Nikki McCann Ramírez (@nikkimcr.bsky.social) September 18, 2025 at 2:07 PM

fun that the person who got fired for lying to her editors has been hired as … an editor

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— Sam Adams (@samadams.bsky.social) September 18, 2025 at 1:57 PM

have all these film critics who keep getting laid off just tried sleeping with Zachary Levi

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— Jacob Oller (@jacoboller.bsky.social) September 18, 2025 at 1:43 PM

gonna be wild when she ends up doing a video sit-down with Cheryl Hines

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— Nitish Pahwa (@nitishpahwa.com) September 18, 2025 at 1:42 PM

I’ve been doing sports journalism since 2008. I’ve had a full-time job for just two and a half of those 17 years. Maybe if I just did a fascism I’d get a job like this.

(To be clear that shit’s never happening. I’ll take stress over money and health insurance over being a hateful grifter.)

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— Maggie Hendricks (@maggiehendricks.bsky.social) September 18, 2025 at 1:38 PM

there are so few outlets, and so few staff jobs, and this is what we get

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— Corey Atad (@coreyatad.com) September 18, 2025 at 1:42 PM

This is yet another travesty in a year filled with them. You could throw a dart at a random writer on Bluesky and find someone more qualified to be a West Coast Editor than one of the Beltway’s most famed gossip merchants who may have let us in on her secret. Elite American media’s executive class have declared for the whole world to see that they fundamentally do not believe in journalism. They are cowardly capitalists first and journalists only when it is financially convenient for them. I can’t think of a better avatar for elite American media’s management class than fawning over someone who failed at the basic task of journalism and then was caught lying about it. This is their well-earned standard bearer, the triumph of American media executives in the 21st century, someone attracted to literal brain worms.