The recent media debate over whether to cover obviously ill-informed tweets from President-elect Trump sounds so old-fashioned as to be naïve. It suggests that journalists are hung up over whether to ignore the message because of the medium.

But that’s not really what’s going on, and readers, whether they use social media themselves or not, may wonder what the hand-wringing is all about.

The heart of the question is one asked every day by editors and reporters and almost as often by the public who call into the newsroom: Why is this (story, photo, video) news?

Reporting has more layers than are obvious to a person reading or watching the finished product.

An item passes the “news” sniff test if it clears hurdles like these: Is the source to be trusted? Can the tip be substantiated (also known as the two-source rule)? What’s the context? That includes what’s been going on around a particular item; a national election is an example of context. Is the person at the center of this item a public figure? The more public the figure, the more compelling the public’s right and need to know.

And if it does qualify as news, is it the Big Story? Does it grab the front page or the top of the website? Newsrooms hold multiple meetings every day to hash out the value and authenticity and impact that allow the biggest stories and photos to rise to the top.

The recent dilemma of some news outlets over coverage of the Trump tweets stems partly from reluctance to elevate forceful but inaccurate statements by making something into news and giving it a headline.

But they also worry: What other news might it be squeezing out of the public view?

When, in a tweet, the president-elect advocates punishment for anyone burning the American flag, he ignores the fact that flag-burning, however disturbing, is a constitutionally protected right of free speech. Should the media call him out on favoring an unconstitutional act? Is that just giving him another platform to perpetuate an inaccuracy?

Or should they keep their eyes on what else is happening at the same time, such as lawsuits, conflicts of interest, qualifications of cabinet appointees?

The answer is all of the above. Authentic journalism, the kind that makes reporters work for peanuts because they believe in it, operates with the public’s right to know as its default setting. You need to know the president-elect would like to punish people whom the Constitution says he cannot punish. You need to know that even if he eschews press conferences and puts his words out on Twitter. You need reporters to follow Donald Trump on Twitter and then report what else he doesn’t say, or maybe even doesn’t know.

Trump is not the only elected official using Twitter; most use it as a campaign tool and carry it with them into office. Most tweets from people in office are self-promoting because, naturally, they don’t tweet criticisms of themselves. Until now, most would not have dreamed of making up items that could be fact-checked and debunked. 

The difference is that Trump uses Twitter recklessly to get the public attention to go where he wants it. Journalists have been scanning Twitter as a source for years now, and that's what it is when it comes to the president-elect: a source to be watched, substantiated or disproven, and reported in context.