What Gets Lost in the Nuzzie Story

Last week a big story in the political news cycle was that of Olivia Nuzzi, the Anthony Wiener intern who decided that the job wasn't paying off, so she dished to the press about the campaign.

Nuzzie's actions were certainly motivated by self aggrandizement and may merit some scorn, but on several levels the response has been problematic. 

The immediate, literally visible, issue, is the sexist response her actions garnered. Nuzzie, indiscretion (or not) aside, has a credible history of aspiring professional campaign work and reporting. Her image from the front of thee Daily News clearly sexualizes her though. The response this all invoked on that front can be best summed up by Grist writer David Roberts's tweet on the matter;

This characterization of Nuzzi was exactly what the Wiener campaign was going for as. Barbra Morgan, the campaign's communications director said so. 

"Fucking slutbag. Nice fucking glamour shot on the cover of the Daily News. Man, see if you ever get a job in this town again.”

Morgan has since apologized and stated that she believed she was off the record when she made the statement, but never-the-less the comment reveals a quick jump sexist derision.  

The other response this has culled is a sort of lumping of this story with other stories about intern labor. It all goes in a pile labeled "intern revolt". The difficulty here is that  in lumping the two together the Nuzzi story can eclipse that of the stories about real issues with intern labor. The Nuzzi story subverts an important and progressing dialogue about labor justice for interns. 

The New York Observer ran an op-ed by former PA political operative James Genovese which emphasized everything wrong about with the Nuzzi focus and our attitudes toward intern labor.

"I get it. You love The West Wing and House of Cards. You even like the BBC House of Cards. You were the president of your school’s college Democrats or Republicans. You tweet like crazy and read Politico. You deserve to be taken seriously. Oh wait, you don’t. You don’t know shit. I love and admire volunteers but I ain’t trying to give them the keys to the castle. You don’t blow in the door and act like you know everything. You’re not the manager, you certainly aren’t the consultant and there are 1000 reasons why that’s the case."

While he is right that interns certainly don't know everything, the tone here puts their sole value in their unquestioning work. It devalues the actual possible contributions they could be making, ignores that internships are de juris expected to be educational experiences, and it emphasizes a culture of crushing the lowest man on the ladder. 

"Maybe I’m a throwback kind of guy, but when it was time to recruit volunteers, make phone calls and knock on doors I did what I was told, when I was told."

No one disagrees that interns should be provided with labor and work hard at it but the idea that it was really hard when I did it so suck it up, it should be really hard for you, does not help anyone. 

This kind of attitude deriding interns a bottom-feeders who can/should be pushed around is indicative of what we find acceptable further along in the work force. If we treat the lowest man this way, there is likely pressure on the guy in the middle to do so, and as I state earlier a culture allowing it to continue helps no one. Raising standards here would benefit all.  

But that is where the conversation is lost. Instead of focusing our attention on the wronged worker, in this case the intern, Genovese and others would have us focus on Nuzzi taking her side of a campaign train wreck to the press, something that is not a  problem even close to the magnitude abuse of intern labor is.