First off let's get this outta the way. Starting off a rebuttal with a smug assumption is going to engender suggestions to in effect get off one's high horse and in this case "there's an obvious disconnect that's being missed" reeked of 'you failed to grasp' or 'this escaped you.' And this example earlier in this very same thread
http://www.thejetoffensive.com/index.php/topic,135.msg329701.html#msg329701 suggests it's habitual. Additionally, following it up with the "feeling bad about being dumb" swipe came off as adorable, child-like petulance. There's no wish to further belabor the point here so I'll bag it...
As for the Wapo/Twitter disconnect, traditionally (and technically) they are apples-to-oranges however Twitter unfortunately has become fixed in place in the news ecosystem thanks in no small part to journalists integrating tweets into their news stories. Even worse, they present tweets as content versus the time-honored journalistic traditions and standards of scrutiny and strict verification.
Journalists don't come with a 'good housekeeping' certificate and their audience is under no obligation to confer authority to them. Journalists' credibility (and authority if you will) is based on a track record of presenting rock solid standards of news gathering: identifying informational sources, vetting, interrogating, verifying and only then communicating them. Twitter has helped corrupt that process by increasingly becoming embedded in the journalistic regimen. In short, journalists are using tweets as content and this slippery slope increases the probability that tweets are now being used as ipso facto markers of ordained knowledge. Journalistic principles of scrutinizing sources through verification is a keystone to a press’s mission statement. Content otoh is mere reproduction which allows journalists to pass responsibility for content verification on to the original publisher, i.e. lazy, he-said / she-said faux journalism. The hard page break between Wapo and Twitter has been blurred to a fairly significant extent and whatever disconnect that existed between them is pretty much yesterday's news - journalists are now sucking off the tweet teat.
That said Twitter has helped otherwise marginalized voices attract MSM visibility, e.g. the BLM movement, so it can and sometimes serve a useful purpose. But even so, those voices are chosen from among a select cast of characters on Twitter who are adept at generating attention. And together with that, by giving rise to certain selected voices (whether their message is accurately verified before "going to press" i.e. tweeted), this shift in journalistic practice shifts the public discourse in a way that does not benefit journalism in general, nor the public, or democracy.
TL:DR. - guilty.
I am versed in inverted triangles, dash-30-dash pr closures, et cetera, et cetera...nothing was missed or ignored from this end... ; )
