Um... no

Stupid memes and journalistic groupthink were baked into American politics way way waaaay before there was ever such a thing as Twitter. Please find something else to scapegoat.

If anything, Twitter (and the internet in general) has at least made the process by which the stupidity develops more inclusive and transparent. Small victory, maybe, but still not the root of the problem.

Update: Drum tries to clarify his thoughts a bit and concedes the point about transparency. But still he's missing the larger issue.

Debate coverage is an extreme case. Reporters should actively want to develop their own opinions about the candidates' performances. They should actively want to avoid letting the rest of the herd influence them. That's just common sense. After they've done that and put their thoughts down on paper, they'll want to get reactions from various folks who have campaign roles, but even then there's no real reason they should be interested in reactions from other reporters. There's no reason to be afraid of having a different take than everyone else.

Well, yes, they certainly should think for themselves when developing their own report.  But I'm still pretty sure  Twitter isn't  what's keeping our political campaign pool reporters from each being his or her own freethinking intellect. There is a universe of newspaper archives from the past several decades which will explode that theory pretty quickly.