I don't know if Twitter is following the media's lead or if the media is following Twitter's lead. Probably both. Paying attention to neither has been a positive in my life.
Not true. Twitter switched to a default "we'll sort tweets for you" a year or two back, with a switch box to temporarily change it back to chronological sorting (this is similar to the Facebook feed). After outcry, they changed it so that it sticks with whichever sorting method you choose.
It doesn't do this for me. It automatically switches back to "top" mode if I haven't used it in several days, or seemingly whenever I'm logged out.
Edit: actually, it looks like you're wrong. Take a look at this screenshot I just took - the automatic switching back seems to be an intended feature: https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmbeFHFSZW58kf8AocrZXkJRYw8...
That seems about accurate. Same with Instagram, in my experience, although if you know a bunch of other people on the platform I suppose you can all follow each other, and then the experience is different.
Actually, I personally follow less than 100 people on Twitter. None of them are celebrities, journalists, or CEOs. They're not people I know either. Twitter for me is basically RSS for posts by a handful of interesting people who don't have blogs. I force it to stay in "latest tweets" mode and hide the sidebar with the latest viral hashtags. I spend about 10-15 minutes a day on Twitter.
It's very telling that everything about Twitter seems to be actively trying to make it as difficult as possible to use it this way. The "ideal" Twitter user seems to be someone who follows a few thousand celebs and spends every spare moment working through the latest viral tweets and memes.