"Twitter shows how the media sausage is made and it’s ugly"

A tweeting greenfinch

For anyone familiar with the Twitter activities of many a BBC journalist (from Jon Sopel to Nick Bryant, John Simpson to Hugh Sykes, Katty Kay to Anthony Zurcher, etc), this Twitter chit-chat puts the issue in a fine nutshell:

Omri Ceren: I am, continuously, absolutely blown away by the tone and tenor of what journalists will permit themselves on Twitter. 

neontaster: A central element to the decline of journalism is that its practitioners use their social media accounts both to spread their professional work and to build their own personal brands. Inevitably the colours bleed into each other. 

coketown: That’s a huge part of it. Another is that their feeds show them thinking out loud. Who they retweet, who they ridicule, the questions they ask or don’t ask, the snide comments and commentary—it all informs their coverage. Twitter shows how the media sausage is made and it’s ugly. 

Sam Hooper: This is also a fair indictment of modern political journalism. A decade ago, we saw only the end product. But now we see the confirmation bias, groupthink, herd mentality and ideological agendas manifest in journalist behaviour, and its corrosive impact on their work product.