Think you're over-estimating their value, if they were posting their thoughts elsewhere without the blue check next to their name no one would be engaging with it, it's honestly such bad content.
There's journalism and there's "journalism". There's certainly standup publications with great authors who make names for themselves by writing great articles. I've been really enjoying Heather Knight's coverage of public waste/corruption in SF for example. On the other hand, there's a lot of really crappy journalists who churn out top 10 lists on shady publications to get paid and desperately need that blue check to add whatever legitimacy they can grasp for to their names. The former category will have no trouble without Twitter, the latter will struggle. That's the steelman anyway. Most crappy journalists would flame out with or without a blue checkmark though.
