The news is also huge for the journalist who broke the story: former CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy, who left the news outlet in August to launch Status, his own one-man newsletter operation. Since then, Darcy has had a string of high-profile scoops, but none have come close to the impact this one has had on the media world.

(Brace yourself for more revelations: Darcy previously worked at Business Insider; I worked for Vox Media, the company that owns New York magazine, from 2015 to 2023; Vox Media now produces and distributes my weekly Channels podcast.)

I asked Darcy about the significance of the story and for an update on his newsletter business, which is less than a month old. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation.

Explain to a normal person who doesn’t spend much time on media why this is a story.

It’s a journalistic story because it presents a conflict of interest. Olivia is one of the most prominent journalists in America, and she wrote probably one of the most consequential pieces of the 2024 campaign, which was about what she called the conspiracy of silence to protect Joe Biden. And since readers didn’t know that this relationship with RFK was going on, it raises questions about a conflict of interest, because RFK has been an active participant in the 2024 campaign.

That’s why it’s a story. It’s not because she was in a relationship with someone; it’s because it raises difficult issues for the magazine and for her, in terms of, “Was her reporting influenced by this relationship?” She says it wasn’t, and maybe it wasn’t. Maybe not at all. But there’s at least a perception problem here. And that’s why it’s important.

It’s hard to overstate her influence in American politics. This is someone who has interviewed Donald Trump multiple times, including for a story that ran earlier this month. She’s probably one of the most prominent magazine writers in the country.

Did you have reservations about pursuing and publishing the story? Was there a part of you that said, “I know this is important, it’s important for journalism, but it’s also about people’s private lives. Maybe this doesn’t have to be a story.”

I hesitated a lot about it. Because I approach stories, or at least I try to approach them, as a human being. And I know that would have a lot of ramifications. I know Olivia too, and I know her, and I revealed this in the story — I’ve been friends with her for years.

So for those reasons it was not an easy story to publish. But it is a story, and I believe that these things are important here. It is also my work.

Every big story I’ve ever done is always something that weighs on your conscience quite a bit. Even in other stories that I’ve done, where I’m not as sympathetic to the person involved, it’s still hard to publish a story where you know it’s going to have huge ramifications for someone. I definitely don’t take it lightly.

After you published your story and New York Magazine issued a statement, Nuzzi published her own statement, which may change the way people saw the story. She said that they were not in a physical relationship, but that there was communication. Did you know before you published that this was her version of the story?

I knew there was an inappropriate relationship between the two and I printed everything I could print at that time.

If it turns out that she didn’t have a physical relationship at all, but something else, does that change the meaning of the story and what would happen then?

I don’t think so. I really don’t. I think, as she said, this should have been made public. And as New York Magazine said, I think they’re taking this pretty seriously. She shouldn’t have been allowed to cover the presidential campaign because of it. So I think it’s still a really big deal.

This is also the biggest story you’ve published since launch, is that right?

This is definitely the biggest story since we launched.

How is your new business going?

Really good. The response was great. A lot of people subscribed right away. But scoops also bring in more readers, so I tried to get some.

How many readers do you have? How many subscribers do you have?

I don’t really want to give it away yet, but I’m happy about it.

How is life different when you do this 100% alone, compared to doing it mostly alone, but at CNN?

A lot of it is the same because it’s the same work that I did at CNN. But you do lose some of the infrastructure and some of that support system. It’s a little more challenging when you’re on your own and you’re not part of a giant machine, especially when you’re covering a story that’s as complicated as what we’re covering.

Speaking of a media company, I was surprised when you launched that you were making this a subscription product. Obviously, there’s been a big movement in media over the last few years toward subscriptions. But what you were doing before was free. There’s a lot of media journalism that’s free. Why did you decide to make this a paid product?

I have a business to run. And I think people should pay for journalism that they think is good.

I would love it if there was a way to distribute good journalism for free. And I think what we’re really seeing, even with outlets like CNN about to launch subscription products, is that the only real way here is to charge for journalism, because it’s very expensive.

Just for me: I have to pay for Getty Images access. I have to pay for legal insurance. I have to pay for website infrastructure. I have to pay for all of this stuff before I can even pay rent. So this stuff is expensive, and if you want to support good journalism, I think you have to pay for it.

And it’s really the way that I can tell readers that this is 100% an independent product. They’re supporting my independent voice, and if they want to do that, they’re going to have to pay for a subscription.

To sum this all up: Do you think last night’s scoop is going to drive more subscriptions for you? Were you able to see people subscribing in real time last night?

Yeah, of course. You could see people subscribing in real time.