A quick question about the whole Roseanne Barr situation: What took her so long?

The cancelation of her TV show due to her recent tweet was not surprising and thankfully affects me in no way, shape or form. I never watched her original show and certainly didn’t watch this latest incarnation.

She will re-appear somehow and become a news item again. Celebrity is like that.

To me, the key word is this whole mess is the same word that always seems to appear in any Sensational Story of the Day — “tweet.”

I think I have a Twitter account (set up many moons ago and I literally don’t know what my handle is) and I know Designated Writers has one as well. I can actually send out a tweet, but it requires effort.

All of that is to say that one of the reasons I am glad I am not in newspaper reporting anymore is because of all the tweet-chasing that has to go on. One person sends out a tweet, or responds to something, and the world immediately stops on its axis. I literally don’t know how reporters keep up.

So if the backup shortstop for the Brewers tweets out something that might be considered controversial to someone in New Mexico, you gotta be on it? What about the reaction? What about the reaction to the reaction? It only stops when the next stupid person hits the blue Tweet button.

When I was a reporter, my least favorite task — by far — was the Man On The Street story. (Thankfully, I didn’t have to do many.) It never made any sense to me to chase down some Schmo just to find out what he thought about a marginally interesting issue. And I never thought asking 3 or 4 people about a topic was any way to judge true popular opinion. But newspaper editors loved them because it made them seem “in touch” with the community.

But with this tweeting business, it’s all one gigantic Man On The Street story. Great … someone has an opinion. At least back then, the reporter could keep them from sounding stupid.

With Twitter, everyone is free to be an idiot all by themselves. And too many of them are.