Ex-Politico reporter Ryan Lizza ripped his former outlet for engaging in an alleged “censorship campaign” against his new Substack blog. Lizza, in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review on Wednesday, said Politico is threatening him legally because he criticized the outlet for sucking up to President Trump.
Earlier this week, Status reported that Politico believes Lizza violated a non-disparagement clause by launching his Substack, dubbed Telos.
“Politico is threatening a lawsuit, which could easily destroy Telos, unless I delete several articles from the Internet in their entirety, which I would never do. It’s appalling that they would demand that a news organization delete critical reporting about Trump,” Lizza told CJR. “I don’t know what’s going on over there, but John Harris [Politico’s global editor-in-chief and a co-founder] and Mathias Döpfner [CEO of Axel Springer, Politico’s owner] should be embarrassed.”
He added the “good news” is that everyone in the Politico newsroom backs his Substack and not their “corporate overlords.”
Lizza, when he launched his Substack last week, further blasted Politico, saying it was one of several outlets that would “grovel” before the president. And this week on Telos, he said Politico has demanded he remove several articles, including one in which he said the outlet made a “regrettable mistake” by sending a reporter to CPAC to “smooth things over” with the White House.
“I think Politico’s censorship campaign against Telos validates my initial, quite mild criticism about how Politico’s editorial leadership is not equipped to meet this moment,” Lizza told CJR on Wednesday. “They seem frozen in a pre-Trump mindset about where we are in America when it comes to political journalism. The good news is that it’s never too late to do better. John Harris is getting up there in age.”
He added: “He probably only has a few more years left in the business, so hopefully this episode will nudge him to do some self-reflecting about how he wants to be remembered. Does he really want to be remembered for accommodating himself to Trump and suing journalists over criticism?”
Before launching his Substack, Lizza was Politico’s chief Washington correspondent for six years. His exit came after he had to stop co-authoring Playbook for Politico last year after his ex-fiancée Olivia Nuzzi’s “personal relationship” with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. surfaced.
On that topic, Lizza did not have much to tell CJR. He criticized Puck’s Dylan Byers as “by far the dumbest reporter” he dealt with during that situation — Byers declined to comment to CJR — but said the full story will have to be shared “another day.”
“Suffice it to say that it is the craziest experience I have ever been through in my life, and the full story is a hundred times crazier than what people know,” he concluded.
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