Liberal leaning NYT reporter Glenn Thrush, who has long been a thorn in President Trump‘s side, is following a path previously traveled by the likes of Breitbart News‘s Matthew Boyle, Big League Politics Patrick Howley, and CNN’s Alisyn Camerota.
Conservative provocateurs Milo Yiannopoulos and GotNew‘s Charles C. Johnson are also in Twitter’s graveyard, but not by choice.
At midnight Thrush says his Twitter feed will be gone. In the dust of his tweeting burial, he leaves behind 350K followers. It’s hard to imagine his superiors are entirely pleased that potentially 350,000 New York Times readers will not reap the benefit of his web traffic. Especially in an era in which Trump uses the medium to communicate serious — as well as completely stupid — thoughts to his followers.
Sure, Twitter may be a dumb, monumental waste of time. But if the President is doing it, can a reporter afford not to?
Hey folks — I’ve decided to delete my Twitter account at midnight. Too much of a distraction. DM me for contact info. Thanks for reading!
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) September 18, 2017
“Why wait for midnight?” Politico media writer Jack Shafer asked dryly on Twitter.
Ina Fried, chief technology correspondent for Axios, remarked, “On the plus side, @fmanjoo moves up one in the Twitter rankings of NYT staffers — to No. 4,538.” She’s referring to NYT tech reporter Farhad Manjoo.
Reaction to Thrush’s gave announcement has had an odd psychological ripple effect of self-reflection. The sentiment being, if he leaves, what are we all still doing here?
“Ask Amy” advice giver Amy Dickinson inserted her two cents without being asked.
“Tick tock – better run this past your publisher,” she scolded.
Who asked you Amy?
But she wasn’t the only one who reacted with skepticism.
“You’re a journalist. This is unwise,” said NYT bestselling author Molly Knight.
Some followers pleaded with him to stay.
“Some people on Twitter should delete their account, but you are not one of them. Your voice is needed. Think it over,” wrote LindaC.
Misty Price had an entirely other, albeit more selfish, reason for Thrush to not do this.
“If you delete it everyone who ever used it as retweet for a story or other tweet loses the link. Just stop using Twitter, don’t delete acct,” said Price.
In other enclaves of the Twittersphere, reaction was more like, good, he’s leaving. As an aside, in 2013, Thrush earned a rightful place on Adweek‘s “10 Journos You Don’t Want To Fight On Twitter” list. He came in at a weak #7. (#1 slot went to media critic Richard Grenell.)
Glenn Thrush Finally Follows Advice Of His Esteemed Commenters pic.twitter.com/Va0CAJKURr
— Jonah Bennett (@BennettJonah) September 18, 2017
Washington Post reporter Mark Berman had a proposition for Thrush.
“Glenn let me take over your Twitter account, I promise you won’t regret it for at least 10 minutes,” he wrote.
Some refused to believe it.
“Is this for real?” asked Cheryl Bolen, White House correspondent for Bloomberg BNA.
And, of course, some had melancholy musings about a Twitter that won’t include Thrush.
“Will miss your tweets,” said Laura Rozen, a foreign policy reporter for AlMonitor.
Politico labor policy editor Timothy Noah echoed Rozen, saying, “We’ll miss you!”
The feed known as ComfortablySmug conveyed less warmth and more angry sadness.
“Don’t give in to the sons of bitches!” Smug wrote. “Never give up the fight on here!”
Not everyone believes Thrush is leaving for good.
“Like Garth Brooks, he’ll be back,” cracked Politico‘s Jack Shafer, after jokingly nudging him out the door.