At some point since its creation in 2006, Twitter went from being an object of curiosity—the subject of news stories—to one of the chief conduits of the news.

     “Every single major news event has broken on Twitter for the past couple of years,” says Dan Sinker, the writer, designer, and programmer who shot to Web fame as the author of the hilariously profane @MayorEmanuel parody account. “It’s a thing that is no longer able to be written off as where people share what they had for lunch. It really commands more and more of the news cycle itself.”

     Sinker will discuss online journalism at the Personal Democracy Forum panel “Newsing the Live Web” Monday afternoon, along with mega-tweeting reporters like NPR’s Andy Carvin and Brian Stelter of The New York Times.

     “Ironically, I feel like The New York Times folks use Twitter really well,” Sinker tells Adweek, “even though [outgoing executive editor] Bill Keller wrote that it’s really dumb.”