Last week, anonymous Twitter users @crushingbort and @blippoblappo assembled damning evidence that BuzzFeed's Benny Johnson had repeatedly plagiarized Wikipedia and other sources, forcing editor Ben Smith to fire him. (Talking Points Memo had an excellent interview with the two.)
But this wasn't the first outbreak of serious journalism from the weird corners of Twitter. Some months ago tweeters @violentfanon, @swarthyvillain, @dankmtl, and @lindsberty started a podcast called the Emoprog Army Radio Hour. It's a shoestring operation, but on Tuesday (also with @samknight1) they landed an interview with Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept, regarding their latest scoop about the NSA's joint operation with the Saudi Arabia secret police.
They're a bit of an unpolished lot, but I found it quite interesting. Particularly of note was Hussain's account of living in Saudi Arabia years ago, and Greenwald's description of how Israel interacts with U.S. intelligence agencies (not to mention some of his many rescued dogs chiming in at a few points). At the very least, it was head and shoulders above Meet the Press both in depth and sophistication.
Check out the interview here. --Ryan Cooper