Politicians aren't very "Online"; they're in e-mail and IMs with staffers, but they aren't engaging on social media, which is what Noah is really referring to.

Politicians aren't very "Online"; they're in e-mail and IMs with staffers, but they aren't engaging on social media, which is what Noah is really referring to. The issue I see is that journalists are increasingly _only_ "Online" and, until last year, ran Twitter as their petty fiefdom. Because they're having their conversations amongst themselves and rarely with anyone outside, they think their conversations (especially Twitter) are 90% of reality. And that then feeds back to politicians, who are very responsive to what journalists say -- even if it isn't true, journalists can repeat something often enough with clickbait and weasel headlines until folks believe it to be true.