Repeating stuff from Twitter does seem to be how an awful lot of journalists are doing their jobs these days, particularly for local news. Many local news stori

Repeating stuff from Twitter does seem to be how an awful lot of journalists are doing their jobs these days, particularly for local news. Many local news stories I see in my area are just little more than a three-paragraph wrapper around a series of Twitter screenshots. I expect the reduction of local media to a retweeting engine is probably a function of cratering local news budgets. It's far cheaper to outsource news-gathering to the wisdom of crowds than to pay journalists to do the work directly. Above the local market, if you follow the right circles on Twitter you stand a very good chance of getting advance notice of what the media will be reporting several hours (or even several days) before the stories are broadcast/published.