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I think the modern manifestation of journalist is an influencer, with an individual brand, who can support their journalism through their brand. Rather than needing to clan up with a newspaper and take editorial orders from the newspaper execs.

It's pretty easy to buy-in to all journalists being influencers, but it leaves open the question how do we make sure all influencers aren't journalists. What code or standard do journalists adhere to to elevate themselves over baseline influencer, broadly speaking. That's an open question and one I hope gets answered eventually...

I think the journalist using Twitter as their platform are doing it for PR, brand and for being influencers... So I feel it is right to charge them for using it as marketing tool. Just like anyone else.

Although from what I can tell verifying journalists is at least somewhat arbitrary once you get beyond big names and pubs. I do some amount of writing for trade press etc. and I was rejected in spite of my account being impersonated the week before (and the impersonator being banned).