The kerfuffle over The New York Times parting company with journalist Lauren Wolfe after her tweet describing the “chills” she felt as President-elect Biden’s plane landed at Andrews on the eve of the inauguration misses the point. (For the record, The Times maintains that the separation was not the result of her tweet, implying that it had other problems with her performance.)
The problem with her tweet is that her “chills” do not meet the minimum standard of news. The reader doesn’t care about her chills. If another bystander professed to feel chills, that might qualify as a modest bit of color. But Lauren’s chills were beside the point.
The controversy, to the degree it is one, underscores the thorny problems posed by journalists tweeting on the job. First Amendment protections should and do apply, but spare us your chills, Lauren.