New York Times White House Correspondent Glenn Thrush has chosen to leave Twitter as of midnight Tuesday morning, and said the social media platform is “too much of a distraction.”
“Hey folks — I’ve decided to delete my Twitter account at midnight. Too much of a distraction. DM me for contact info. Thanks for reading!” the reporter tweeted on Monday.
Hey folks — I've decided to delete my Twitter account at midnight. Too much of a distraction. DM me for contact info. Thanks for reading!
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) September 18, 2017
He later clarified that he won’t truly be deleting the account, because that would leave his handle @GlennThrush open for imposters.
No. Deleting just means someone else, maybe someone bad, grabs the name and ppl think it's me. Corp. folks insisted. https://t.co/U3MwP7frhP
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) September 19, 2017
This account is dormant as of 9/19/17.
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) September 19, 2017
Thrush, formerly a senior White House reporter for Politico, was thrashed on social media last year after leaked emails showed he gave Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta a look at his work before publication.
“Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u,” Thrush said, asking Podesta to keep it between them. “Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this Tell me if I f—ed up anything.”
Despite that snafu, Thrush went to the New York Times in January, and has been on the forefront of the paper’s reporting on the Trump administration.
He and his colleague Maggie Haberman are currently working on a book about the early months of Trump’s administration for Random House.
Other journalists had mixed reactions to Thrush’s social media exit, as Twitter is a platform nearly universally used by reporters to share and break news, scoops and find sources.
https://twitter.com/molly_knight/status/909811381934813184
Or is it the most wise thing he can do as a journalist? As a human who wants to be sane? I think there's room for debate on the subject.
— Tony Baranowski (@tonyapb3) September 18, 2017
https://twitter.com/cmonstah/status/909858162995429378
Actually quite wise. Get out of the fever swamp. Focus on a real reporting.
— Brian Jones (@BriWeJo) September 18, 2017