Megan McArdle thinks that media institutions should put restrictions on how their employees can use Twitter. Those institutions “become hostage to the stupidest or most extreme thing any employees have said in their most thoughtless moments. They also suffer when angry employees turn internal fights over policy into ugly public spectacles.” She concludes that “the big media outlets and the major think tanks should tell their employees to read Twitter all they like, but not to post anything more controversial than baby pictures or recipes for cornbread.”

I think she is right, even though it goes against my interests as an individual. Which gets to a point I think she underplays: Twitter boosts the influence of individual journalists at the expense of their institutions. That’s part of the problem it poses for journalism.