Late Thursday night, it was revealed that New York Magazine had placed Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi on leave after it was revealed that she was allegedly having a relationship with former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Had the magazine been aware of this relationship, it would not have continued to cover the presidential campaign,” the magazine said in a statement. The statement referred to the other person only as “a former person relevant to the 2024 campaign.” Oliver Darcy of Status reported that this person was RFK Jr., “according to people familiar with the matter.” This reporting has since been confirmed by other media outlets.

You may have some questions about this whole situation.

Who is Olivia Nuzzi again?

Nuzzi is a respected political journalist best known for her portraits of complicated figures in Washington. You may have read her July piece, “The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden,” which appeared before he dropped out of the race, or her September article on Donald Trump’s post-assassination ear. Or her November 2023 profile of … none other than RFK Jr.

Before joining New York Magazine, she was a political reporter at the Daily Beast. Nuzzi also has a new interview show on Bloomberg Television. And she once made a brief guest appearance on Billions.

Wait, did the relationship start before or after this profile?

Afterwards. Here is her statement:

Earlier this year, communications between me and an individual who previously reported on me became personal in nature. During this time, I did not report directly on the individual nor use him or her as a source. The relationship was never physical in nature, but should have been disclosed to avoid the appearance of a conflict. I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I disappointed, especially my colleagues in New York.

So it wasn’t a physical relationship, just a few text messages?

Well, according to a report from CNN, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said “the relationship was emotional and digital in nature, not physical.” One can imagine that “digital in nature” … encompasses many different things.

How long did it take?

Nuzzi told New York Magazine that the campaign will begin in December 2023 and run through the end of August, according to a statement sent to staff by David Haskell, the magazine’s editor-in-chief.

What did RFK Jr. say?

A representative of his made the following statement to the media: “Mr. Kennedy met Olivia Nuzzi only once in his life for an interview she requested that resulted in a defamatory article.” Which would not be wrong if the relationship had only been digital!

RFK Jr. is 70. I heard she’s only 31? She must have gotten into journalism at a very young age.

Yes, that’s right! At age 20, Nuzzi wrote an article for a now-defunct website called NSFW Corp and an addendum for the New York Daily News about her time as an intern on Anthony Weiner’s mayoral campaign.

How can Anthony Weiner be involved in every sex scandal? The year is 2024.

Yes, Weiner allegedly called the interns “Monica,” after former Clinton White House intern Monica Lewinsky. After the articles were published, Weiner’s spokesperson called Nuzzi a “slut” and other insults. That was in 2013.

Ugh. OK, so she obviously survived.

Yes, and she made a career out of reporting juicy stories about politicians and enjoyed a meteoric rise in journalism. She became one of the country’s top profilers, with a stylish writing style and an uncanny ability to get controversial figures talking. She has produced profiles of Dr. Oz, Kellyanne Conway and Hope Hicks.

Why does anyone care about her relationship with RFK Jr. or whatever?

Despite commonplace portrayal in film and television, it is generally considered unethical for journalists to sleep with sources or have any kind of close personal relationship with them. It is extremely rare and almost always results in dismissal or a quick exit from the profession.

There are exceptions: New York Times reporter Ali Watkins was romantically involved with James Wolfe, the security chief of the Senate Intelligence Committee who went to prison for making false statements to the FBI. Watkins had disclosed her relationship to her bosses at the Times, but not to her superiors at McClatchy News – where she interned and later worked – when the relationship began. Watkins was reassigned to another department at the Times.

Why can’t you build a personal relationship with a source?

When dealing with sources, it’s important to be impartial. If you’re friends with a source or have a romantic relationship with them, your loyalty may lie with them rather than with your readers. Ideally, reporters and sources should never really be buddies. In practice, however, that doesn’t mean journalists don’t have favorite sources, sources they like, or all sorts of weird access-based relationships with important or well-informed people. This is especially true in Washington.

So sometimes reporters are kind to their sources and get away with it. But romantic entanglements are a definite no-no. Former Slate media columnist Jack Shafer put it this way in a 2018 article for Politico magazine:

Editors have to police romances because it’s easy to prove that a reporter has lost his impartiality by screwing over his source. It’s harder to prove that a reporter is easy for his sources to get through friendship, so platonic relationships mostly go unchallenged, and we foolishly reserve the scarlet letter of lost impartiality only for romance journalists. The ethics cops seem oblivious to the fact that people you haven’t slept with often have more influence over you than people you have slept with.

OK, but we don’t know exactly what happened to Nuzzi and RFK Jr. …

True, but whatever it was, it’s obviously enough for her employer to investigate how it might have influenced her reporting. Even though he wasn’t her subject during the “digital relationship,” she still covered the 2024 presidential election, and RFK Jr. was actually running for president.

New York Magazine has hired an independent firm to review Nuzzi’s work to determine the exact nature of any disciplinary action. In the meantime, she is on leave and her articles are accompanied by a reader notice linked above.

Are Nuzzi and RFK Jr. in a relationship regardless of what happened between them?

Yes. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is married to Cheryl Hines, the actress from Curb your enthusiasm. Olivia Nuzzi got engaged to Ryan Lizza in October 2022, but the two have since split. Lizza reports for Politico’s Playbook.

Uh, does HE have to cover that?

Here is a statement from him that appeared in Playbook: “Because of my connection to this story through my ex-fiancée, my editors and I have agreed that I will not participate in any coverage of Kennedy in Playbook or elsewhere at Politico.”

Didn’t Ryan Lizza have a scandal himself?

Yes. Lizza was fired from The New Yorker in 2017 over allegations of “inappropriate sexual contact.” He denied the allegations and said he was dismayed that the magazine misrepresented a “respectful relationship” as something inappropriate.

Aren’t Nuzzi and Lizza writing a book together?

They were co-authors of a book about the 2020 election campaign, but publisher Simon & Schuster put the project on hold in 2021. The New York Post reported that Nuzzi had personal problems that led to the book’s delay and that the two were unable to get the stories the publisher wanted.

What happens next?

Who knows! Again, Nuzzi is a really talented reporter and writer. If she gets fired, another media outlet will probably give her a chance and assure her that she won’t engage in weird sexting activities with conspiracy theory presidential candidate sources who have brain worms again. (Or any sources at all. If she stays in New York, she could be pulled from Washington coverage.) There’s always the possibility that this is actually the end of her reporting career. But I would doubt she’ll ever engage in sexting again. The.