Kara Swisher, journalist and podcaster from the USA, in conversation with Kim Kardashian on a stage at the OMR digital and marketing trade fair. Mother Jones illustration; Getty; Christian Charisius/dpa/Zuma

The staff of Mother Jones is, once again, rounding up the heroes and monsters of the past year. This is a non-exhaustive and totally subjective list, giving our reporters a chance to write about something that brought joy, discontent, or curiosity. Happy holidays.

There are few pop culture stereotypes I despise more than the one about female reporters having sex with their sources. For this reason (also paywalls), I have been less obsessed than some of my colleagues with the ongoing journalism shitshow starring Olivia Nuzzi, the former New York magazine star political reporter; her ex-fiance Ryan Lizza, another former big-deal Beltway-insider-scribe; and RFK Jr., Trump’s secretary of health and human services, now busy destroying the public health system here and abroad.

But, like every American journalist capable of reading, I still know way, way too much about how Nuzzi, then covering the 2024 election, became embroiled in a sext and FaceTime affair with RFK Jr.—the subject of one of her profiles—while he was running for president and yes, by the way, married to actress Cheryl Hines. Meanwhile, Nuzzi was writing other pieces about Joe Biden and Donald Trump that may not have changed the course of the most important US election in my lifetime, but certainly helped to shape the narrative. Nuzzigate........

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