> because a large amount of commentary comes across as Tweet-sized asides, not full articles.

There are very few topics that are both worthy of a news story and able to be summarized even remotely well in 140 characters. It is literally the downfall of journalism and in my opinion is a major driver in the complete lack of rational discussion in politics today.

News stories often have little else in them other than their headline. Like, for instance, this one. 90% of the value of this is the headline itself.

Except that many reporters and journalist do the same (obviously there are good ones, not claiming yours do) and they end up being in the same bubble. To this add that journalist and media are twitter lifeline, so essentially they can bully the platform as they like.

A great example was the learn to code meme.

Why follow reporters instead of subjects they report on, collaboratively edited by many people?

Because your suggestion is theoretical while Twitter exists today.

Uh, his suggestion is a newpaper, magazine or other forms of publications these journalists work for. Except if you subscribe to the publication instead of the journalist, you get the benefit of the publication's editors.