I do understand your feelings of a responsibility to be up to date on news, especially when it is regarding political events. It's easy to get the facts from a

I do understand your feelings of a responsibility to be up to date on news, especially when it is regarding political events. It's easy to get the facts from a report on the weather, a tornado devastated a town, you know this is true because you can see the photos (selected for drama) taken of the damage. It's more difficult when reporting is on things that are a little more fluffy. Claims a politician did something are almost impossible to verify and reporting on this ends up being an exercise in spin. One of the best things about politicians taking to twitter to directly communicate is that you have an unfiltered direct message. If something is in a tweet from a politician then you can be pretty sure that is the message they want to get out. If they same something stupid or ill considered at least you can judge them on that, not so much the actual facts of the content. So media of all types allow you to judge the messenger, less so the message.