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How Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan Lizza Became Main Characters on Social Media

NYT > Business > Media · Ginia Bellafante · last updated

It felt like something out of Spy magazine in the 1980s, or Gawker in the first years of the new millennium — a media scandal drenched in sex, politics, secrets and self-dramatization.

Olivia Nuzzi and Ryan Lizza, political writers who had a habit of making news both before and after they were engaged to each other, were in near unavoidable circulation this week, overwhelming social media and the universe of Amtrak’s Northeast corridor.

These two products of legacy media, who once covered people in power for major publications, now find themselves hustling for attention in an environment where nothing gets you noticed like salacious self-revelation. They have stories to tell, and they are at the center of them.

For the uninitiated: Ms. Nuzzi, 32, and Mr. Lizza, 51, were a modestly glamorous, well-connected Washington couple. They ended their engagement last year, after her personal involvement with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became widely known.

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