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But what Trump posted on Twitter made headlines every single day because the media (NYT, WAPO, Fox, NBC, MSNBC,CNN etc.) promoted his craziness relentlessly. Why? It generated clicks. I wasn’t on Twitter until after Trump was off but I think the ban has been healthy for the media ecosystem. If Trump goes back on he will again totally dominate the public conversation because the media on Twitter can’t help themselves - he just makes it too easy for them to grab a tweet and call it a day’s work done. We are taught in Dem messaging classes never to repeat the opposition’s message - even to refute it because repeating it only further spreads and reinforces the message. I am concerned Elon Musk may have ambitions beyond Twitter, perhaps even politically. Both he - and Trump - represent continuing dangers to democracy. And I am very concerned our media ecosystem is not sufficiently developed to withstand their seductive power.

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Twitter is only part of our nightmare. A very full discussion of how social media is polarizing the nation and ruining our democracy, is in May 2022 issue of the Atlantic at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/. Jonathan Haidt writes: "In the 20th century, America built the most capable knowledge-producing institutions in human history. In the past decade, they got stupider en masse." He also suggests solutions.

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Apr 20, 2022·edited Apr 20, 2022

I realize that much of what we consume as “news” these days lacks datelines (or even dates), but it seems that now editors are also victims of efficiency and streamlining. Pity. These days if you—for some reason—read six stories on the same topic, you would swear they were written by the same person, sourced by twitter. Pretty shallow.

Then we have the J-school graduates who are mission journalists who write 5,000 word articles on the strange plight of some group you never knew was a group.

How many articles were written about Hilary’s emails. 25,000? After about five articles, there was absolutely nothing new to say. The other 24,995 articles were about reactions to the articles. Even the venerable Diane Rehm show beat this dead horse until it was a wet spot in the ground. Twenty years from now, historians will write about the lazy reporters who blew this story up by focusing on twitter feeds of other reporters tweeting about their own stories on the emails. And thus elected Trump.

Of course, now I must acknowledge the hundred good reporters in the country. Perhaps they could gather with the hundred or so good cops, and the lawmakers who actually care about gun deaths. And realize there are far more active NFL players than these three groups combined.

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Twitter is on the way out. Even an evil right wing billionaire cannot save it.

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