Comment by WarmWash

This is also why twitter drove journalism (and perhaps even the country) off a cliff.

Naive journalists thought twitter was a "public square" that they could conveniently access from the comfort of their living room. They didn't know that it was a powerful echo chamber that resonated the best with strong views, and the space had long been a refuge for people with extreme outlier opinions.

Hence why "topics worthy of national attention" where just whatever was trending on twitter.