Media

1. Rush Hour 4(!)
2. Mixed Signals(!)
3. Vibes and airwaves
4. Economist bidding war

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 Means of Control, 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.

Also today: Our CEO editor sits down with the head of Gen Z’s favorite sneaker brand.

Trump gets his ‘Rush Hour’ sequel

Donald Trump has once again left his mark on the entertainment industry. Last week, we were the first to report that Trump had taken time out of his presidential schedule to lobby the Ellisons to tell Paramount to make a new installment of the Rush Hour franchise. The movie had been stuck in limbo for years amid studios’ skittishness about working with director Brett Ratner, who lost much of his sway in Hollywood after facing sexual misconduct allegations. But Trump’s pressure to revive the franchise worked: Just days after we broke the news, Puck’s Matt Belloni reported that Ratner’s Rush Hour 4 will be moving forward, with Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery set to co-distribute.

Kerger on PBS’ future

Public broadcasting rarely makes headlines, but that changed when the Trump administration moved to slash funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, threatening both PBS and NPR. On this week’s Mixed Signals, PBS CEO Paula Kerger joins Max and Ben to unpack a turbulent year for public media, covering the fight to save local stations, Ken Burns’ advocacy efforts, and the ongoing debate over the future of broadcast TV in a streaming world.

Who wants to buy (a quarter of) The Economist?

For some $200 million, you can have a quarter of The Economist — and essentially no control over its content. Reuters scooped last week that the profitable, unique British magazine is valued at around $800 million as bidding for a 27% stake being sold by Lynn Forester de Rothschild continues. The magazine’s largest shareholder is the Agnelli family, represented by Ferrari Chairman John Elkann, but there’s a catch: Even large shareholders have quite limited control of the publication, whose editor is appointed by a board of trustees (the current batch is made up of a baroness, a dame, a lord, and a prominent lawyer). Still, it’s one of the great media trophies, and we hear there’s interest from media investors on both sides of the Atlantic. If you know who’s bidding, let us know.

Nexstar, Tegna, and Trump

Our business editor, Liz Hoffman, spent a few hours recently rating business school students’ most creative stock plays. Her favorite, as she wrote last week, was a bet on Nexstar’s hoped-for acquisition of Tegna, which would put Nexstar in 80% of US households, double the limit set by Congress. “This is not, on paper, a close call,” she wrote. “But the students’ practical argument was that President Donald Trump and his FCC chair, Brendan Carr, wanted the deal to happen because they and Nexstar have the same enemies — lately, Jimmy Kimmel — and so it would.” Nexstar rival Sinclair has followed suit with a hostile takeover approach to E.W. Scripps, though such a deal would also push it above the cap. Trump said last week that he doesn’t want the cap lifted, dinging Tegna’s stock price. But that’s beside the point, Liz argued: “The students correctly recognized that dealmaking today is about whims, not the law.”

• The New York Times is quietly laying off three correspondents on the business desk in Europe, as it shifts some business reporters away from country-specific reporting to more thematic beats. While the Times has occasionally reduced staff on its product side, editorial cuts are increasingly rare at the media behemoth.
• Tomorrow, New York magazine releases its Culturati issue, with celebrities weighing in on their favorite bits of culture: singer Lorde on the best books of the year, Claire Danes on White Lotus, Lindsay Lohan on The Rehearsal, Chase Sui Wonders on Nate Bargatze’s turn hosting the Emmys, and more.