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Editor Mark Guiducci and other leaders at Vanity Fair are concerned for and about their new star, Olivia Nuzzi. At first, Condé Nast wasn’t commenting on the salacious allegations her former fiancé, reporter Ryan Lizza, was making via his serialized Substack. Some at the company initially downplayed Lizza’s depictions of Nuzzi’s relationship with politician Mark Sanford as Washington inside baseball that wouldn’t make much of a dent on the West Coast, where she would be starting work.
But now, just weeks after Vanity Fair published an excerpt of Nuzzi’s book, it’s increasingly unlikely she’ll be a fixture on its print masthead. Lizza’s latest accusations go beyond mixing business with pleasure: He says she tried to sabotage others’ reporting on then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
According to three people familiar with the situation, the company is still in the midst of a “review” of Nuzzi’s work, and no final decision has been made. Unlike the investigation New York Magazine conducted into Nuzzi’s work last year, Vanity Fair’s review is narrow and seems to hinge on whatever Lizza may publish next. (They won’t have to wait long: Part four, titled , is expected to publish this evening.) But two Condé Nast insiders said the publication and Condé Nast execs have been disturbed by the allegations in their totality, and are likely to let her temporary contract expire.
It’s the latest chapter in the rare legitimately shocking political media scandal.
Lizza’s account of Nuzzi’s actions paints her as committing one of journalism’s oldest ethical transgressions: getting too close to a source and abusing the investigative power afforded to journalists for personal ends, such as a romantic relationship. (Allegedly: Much of this remains firmly in the realm of he-said-she-said. Lizza is perhaps the furthest one could get from being an objective observer. Nuzzi has not responded publicly to his claims.)
But the saga has also captured the dynamics of today’s desperate media landscape. A legacy magazine with a young new editor with a mandate to recapture buzz gambled on a high-profile reporter with serious baggage. Lizza, who has been writing the series from Death Valley after tabloid photographers staked out his home in DC, has exploited the drama of his personal life to catapult to the top of Substack’s subscription charts. As of Saturday, he writes the 38th-most popular politics Substack.
It’s an ugly scandal that has aired lewd and remarkable details and embarrassed a magazine hoping to reintroduce itself along the way. But there is one clear winner in this mess: Substack’s PR team has taken notice and begun sending out press releases for Lizza’s latest posts. His first entry, Semafor has learned, garnered 724,000 views, a massive number in the post-traffic era.
