One tweet too many 
 
 X marks the spot where Denis Finley, editor of the paper in Bernie Sanders' hometown, screwed up. If Oprah Winfrey was the media's Big Winner for her Golden Globes peroration on sexual harassment, Finley was a (fortunately less-publicized) Big Loser due to ham-handed tweets. 
 
 Even the most sober of mainstream media get bollixed up over page views and reader engagement as they seek to be more refined P.T. Barnums of a digital age. Being provocative for provocation's sake is increasingly rationalized as a way to promote your handiwork, no matter how tenuous and fleeting the actual loyalty manifested (perhaps with help from a Drudge Report link) might be. 
 
 But, as Finley, executive editor of the Gannett-owned Burlington Free Press, unwittingly reminds us, there's a difference between being responsibly provocative and perhaps tone deaf to your audience — especially in the digital age. 
 
 Vermont plans to join Oregon and Washington, D.C., in offering drivers a third option in listing gender on licenses. So M, F or X. In liberal Burlington, where Sanders was mayor, it's not unpopular. And it just prompted one citizen's tweet, "This is awesome! // #VT Is One Step Closer To Offering A Third Gender On Driver's Licenses." But Finley, who came to the Free Press from Virginia in 2016 after a long stint as Norfolk Virginian-Pilot editor (and, briefly, as publicist for a Norfolk museum), felt compelled to respond: "Awesome! That makes us one step closer to the apocalypse." 
 
 If Winfrey played brilliantly to her audience, Finley fumbled in recognizing his. The Vermont online universe is now filled with mostly outrage, and claims of canceling subscriptions. In fact, it was only the third in a succession of curious tweets by Finley. They underscored the tempting perils of journalists, even newsroom bosses, who feel compelled to opine on, well, just about anything.Thus, Finley saw an Associated Press tweet on how fans of Frank Lloyd Wright are seeking to prevent the demolition of a Montana office building designed in 1958. This inspired a response: "I don't care who designed them, destroy all office buildings." 
 
 Fine. Chalk that up to lame humor. Then, after word from none other than The New York Times that "Former President Barack Obama is to be the first guest on David Letterman's new monthly Netflix talk show," he sought to exhibit his inner Jimmy Kimmel with this: "Another reason not to subscribe to Netflix." That was lame, with a smidgen of the obtuse. 
 
 As outrage quickly manifested itself over the gender matter, Finley seemed to dig a deeper hole. A Tim Sinnott tweeted that the state policy was awesome "because recognition is awesome" and Finley responded, "All recognition? Any recognition, Tim? What if someone said it's awesome they are going to recognize pedophiliacs on licenses? I'm not being snarky, I'm just asking. Not all recognition is awesome." 
 
 Finley was either high-mindedly engaged in a Socratic inquiry, as if teaching a constitutional law seminar, or manifesting Jonesean (as in Alex Jones, of InfoWars) subtlety cum derision. If I'm a top Gannett official, I might now be wondering if a second bomb cyclone affecting New England is actually on my payroll. 
 
 "So you think trans people are the equivalent of pedophiles?" Anderson asked. 
 
 When tracked down by Vermont's Seven Days about the flap (He declined comment when I contacted him, saying, "Maybe in a few days"), Finley said, "I really just wanted to ask the question: 'Why is that awesome? And why is that necessary?' That’s all, and I think any journalist would ask that question." He said use of the word apocalypse was inspired by a Sports Illustrated feature, "Signs of the Apocalypse." 
 
 When I passed through Burlington last summer, there were still Sanders T-shirts in store windows. How long before some retail outlets offer a tie-dyed image of Finley with a big, fat "X"? 
 
 "Denis Finley doesn't seem to care that, when he enters the arena as executive editor, he carries the reputation of his news organization with him. 'Reader engagement' is not making provocative statements and then picking fights with people who disagree," says Tom Kearney, deputy managing editor of the Stowe Reporter, Waterbury Record and News & Citizen of Morrisville, and executive editor of the Shelburne News and The Citizen, which serves Charlotte and Hinesburg. 
 
 Then there's Jon Margolis, who was an A-list national political writer during his heyday with The Chicago Tribune. That was a pre-internet world where reporters and editors weren't tweeting their views on everything from whom they'd seen at lunch, a referee's call in the NFL game they were watching or, of course, every breathing moment of Donald Trump. 
 
 "Why this urge to tweet so often?" asks Margolis, who is retired in South Burlington, a few blocks from the Burlington city line. "I do not think the world breathlessly awaits my latest witty aphorism or my personal take on what happened today. If I have something to offer that’s worthwhile, I’ll write a piece about it. That means reporting — online, on the phone, at somebody’s office. And then writing, as well as possible, which means as succinctly as possible but always more than 280 clicks of the keyboard." 
 
 
 
 "Tweeting is like artificial turf. The technology makes it possible, not advisable. That would apply even where the tweet is not as aggressively ignorant as Finley’s. But just think: Were he writing an article instead of a blurt (essentially what a tweet is) he might have read it over and then altered (or deep-sixed) it. Or had somebody else edit it, which even the boss should always do. Amazing how the conventional processes of newspapers can save us from ourselves." 
 
 Jake Tapper vs. Stephen Miller 
 
 Jousting between cable TV hosts and guests is now a performance fixture. Bill O'Reilly rode it to riches before his sexual harassment self-immolation. In its most pedestrian post-O'Reilly form, it brings some well intentioned but weak liberal saps served up as red meat for Fox's Tucker Carlson. 
 
 In a fairer tussle, it brought us CNN's Jake Tapper and White House aide Stephen Miller. And Tapper giving him the boot. 
 
 Tapper is evolving into his network's prime skeptic of all things Trump and, unlike Carlson, not reflexively given to pillorying lightweight guests. And Miller is the unbridled partisan who has reveled in public combat ever since his high school days at a largely liberal Los Angeles high school 
 
 As The New York Times' Matt Flegenheimer has put it in a profile of Miller, his life "is a triumph of unbending convictions and at least occasional contrivance. It is a story of beliefs that congealed early in a home that he helped nudge to the right of its blue-state ZIP code, and of an ideology that became an identity for a spindly agitator at a large and racially divided public high school." 
 
 "These formative years supplied the template for the life Mr. Miller has carved out for himself in Washington, where he remains the hard-line jouster many of Mr. Trump’s most zealous supporters trust most in the White House — and many former peers fear." 
 
 This all began with the equally pro forma, and dungeon's host salutation, "Stephen, thanks so much for joining us and happy new year, good to see you." 
 
 On Sunday, Miller called Michael Wolff the "garbage author of a garbage book," a rather mediocre pre-meditated line for someone of his acerbic and calculating essence. He called Trump a "political genius." He called it a "work of pure fiction." And "a pile of trash." 
 
 It was mostly solid, fair-minded inquisition by Tapper for about six minutes, until it first got a tad personal and each started cutting off the other. Miller referred to CNN's Trump coverage as hysterical, and Tapper suggested it was Miller who was being hysterical. As if Miler were a child, Tapper asked him to "settle down, settle down." 
 
 At the nine-minute mark, what had seemed a small lull turned sour as Tapper brought up a letter that Miller wrote on the subject of firing then-FBI Director James Comey. Miller stumbled a tad before Tapper broached the president's bizarre Saturday tweet on his own purported genius. 
 
 Tapper correctly persisted in broaching the public discourse on Trump's rationality, as Miller sought to divert the topic to his theme of CNN being out of touch with a working America that his boss understands and CNN doesn't. 
 
 Then, Tapper had enough. He said that Miller was being "obsequious," playing to an audience of one (Trump) and not answering his question. He simply cut him off. It was rather abrupt and could have been executed in a less peremptory manner. It came off as a host losing control, as much as Trump critics loved the scene and think Miller deserved it. But if you don't want to fight the lions, stay away from their pen. 
 
 Regardless, both Miller and Tapper surely came away thinking they'd won (maybe all the more so as Miller was escorted out by security). Predictably, Trump soon tweeted some venom Tapper's way: "Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!" 
 
 New York Times unveils ad on Golden Globes 
 
 Truly salute The New York Times for actually trying to market excellence in a way that's about 20 years late for most of the newspaper industry. It unveiled the next part of its "The Truth is Hard" brand campaign during NBC's Golden Globes broadcast. 
 
 Similar to its first ad on last year's Oscars, the ad features black type against a white background. "He said, she said" are the first words you see. Then they are repeated multiple times until it's just, "She said, she said, she said, she said," with the ad ending "The truth has power. The truth will not be threatened. The truth has a voice." 
 
 The "truth has a voice" is a simple and potent notion. But, as a TV spot, it falls a bit flat. As one top advertising executive told me, it's unlikely that most viewers connected the paper's incredible sex harassment reporting, including on Harvey Weinstein, and the ad. For those who who did — the event was filled with unavoidable talk of sex harassment in Hollywood, including Seth Meyers' opening monologue — the ad was preaching to the choir. 
 
 Potency of advertising involves melding the right media and the right audience. In a narrow sense, the Golden Globes might seem a good target — but only in a narrow sense. The Times has a great narrative to spin as to why it should be trusted, including its admirable attention to fact-checking and precision (even with some hotly disputed cuts in the copy editing force). Perhaps a larger campaign can include such factors. 
 
 It's because the challenge for quality media involves more than the mere declaration of virtue. As with changing the attitudes of Americans toward sex harassment, changing attitudes toward even the best of media — especially when it comes to people paying for content — will involve a military-like campaign, with no one-size-fits-all-messages and the unavoidable (and very expensive) need to make the case with unprecedented regularity and persistence. 
 
 TV news viewing continues to head south, Trump aside 
 
 As Poynter reports, "Until now, local TV news viewership has been declining slowly. But a new Pew research study shows that from 2016 to 2017, the decline picked up speed." 
 
 Younger Americans' turn from TV news is important. But, somewhere in the mix, is surely ideology, though the study does not point explicitly to what's been previously shown to be the sharp decline in Republicans' confidence in "mass media." 
 
 A revealing photo history 
 
 The Associated Press put together a gallery of photos of what actresses have tended to wear at the Golden Globe Awards over the years, as opposed to the black dresses they pointedly wore last night. 
 
 The morning Babel 
 
 CNN opened with Trump defending his mental fitness and, no surprise, a very brief take at colleague Tapper's spat with Miller. It gave rather more time to social media hurrahs about Winfrey's Golden Globes speech and the notion of her running for president. 
 
 "When you think of the Democratic lineup for 2020 ... you pretty quickly run out of star power," said Brian Stelter, media reporter cum political analyst. "If you want to fight fire with fire, Trump is a reality TV star and Oprah Winfrey has been on TV in some ways longer than he has. There are a lot of reasons why this might make sense to Democratic insiders. That speech if anything, gave people more reason to dream it up." For sure, there was a smattering of speculation. But, one might hope, it quickly encounters recognition of what's playing out before us: the obvious limits of electing somebody with no experience in the arena. 
 
 MSNBC's "Morning Joe" backed Tapper's performance ("I would have cut it short after the second answer," said Mika Brzezinski) and was the latest to get time with author Michael Wolff. And, before then, there was Axios' Jonathan Swan on what appears to be Trump's shrinking work schedule and also the co-hosts' riff on Trump's insecurity. The latter included the co-hosts venturing into the topic of TV stars, no names mentioned, being self-absorbed ("We've met a lot of people in television who are narcissistic and stupid," Brzezinski said). Hmmm. 
 
 But it was a different tone on Trump's favorite morning show, "Trump & Friends," where co-host Brian Kilmeade surfaced at Pancake Pantry in Nashville, Tenn., for breakfast and generally supportive Trump chat. Oh, he was also giving away free to diners copies of new books both by himself and co-host Ainsley Earhardt. Call it a celebration of American commerce. 
 
 Sending individuals back to harm 
 
 Sarah Stillman, who heads the Global Migration Project at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has been compiling a database of individuals essentially deported to harm, even death in Central America. With the help of a dozen students, and lots of activists involved in immigrant rights, humanitarian aid and other organizations, she's now uncovered patterns of awful consequences to what can at times seem almost frivolous infractions and, too, insufficient government due diligence and articulation to individuals of their rights. The melancholy bottom line is underscored in this New Yorker piece. 
 
 Terrific women in a mostly male soccer universe 
 
 Watching loads of English soccer over the past week, I was reminded of the terrific in-studio hosting work of Brit Rebecca Lowe for NBC's fine coverage of Premier League matches, as well as Brit Kate Abdo (who is also fluent in Spanish, German and French) for Fox Sports' solid (not quite as strong and measured as NBC's) coverage of the related FA Cup tournament. The latter is one in which the top rank teams are thrown into a mix with lower division ones in frequent David vs. Goliath contests (often at the very quaint fields of the Davids). Sunday, mighty Arsenal was such a victim. 
 
 And yet, they are surrounded by a sea of men, in studio and out, with all the match announcers men and, with a single seeming exception, glimpsed in an Arsenal-Nottingham Forest match yesterday, all the refs and linesman are male (there was a female linesman). 
 
 New England hoopla 
 
 New England Patriots fans have reason to be suspicious of ESPN, as Boston.com columnist Chad Finn, underscores. An us-versus-the-world mindset is partly fueled by some inaccurate reporting on the Patriots by ESPN. But when it comes to its chronicle of rising tensions among the owner, coach and star quarterback, Finn defends reporter Seth Wickersham 
 
 The reflexive doubts are too bad, he writes, since "if the story is read with clear eyes and all rooting interests aside, it’s far more illuminating than it is salacious." 
 
 Are we so sure that Mueller is investigating Trump for obstruction? 
 
 Writing in the excellent Lawfare blog, Harvard Law's Jack Goldsmith raises the possibility that the seeming lack of recusal by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the Mueller Russia investigation might suggest that there's not the obstruction investigation that folks assume (speculation fueled further by a Michael Schmidt opus in The New York Times last week). 
 
 "One possibility is that Rosenstein has no conflict because Mueller is not actually investigating the president for obstruction. It has been widely reported for months in multiple reputable outlets that Mueller is conducting such an investigation. Schmidt’s story implies that he is, and reports that Mueller has evidence in his possession that appears relevant only to an obstruction investigation." 
 
 The reader over your shoulder 
 
 There's unavoidable counsel to journalists in a blog in the Paris Review, the literary bastion founded by the late George Plimpton, as Patricia O'Conner an author and former staff writer at The New York Times Book Review, discusses a 1940s work by poet-novelist Robert Graves, "The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose.” 
 
 The book turned on the notion that writers should imagine a bunch of readers standing over their shoulder, in the process laying out 41 core principles and, then, annealing 50 excerpts of writing from famous authors to school headmasters. Graves was pretty fearless in underscoring lack of clarity. 
 
 As O'Conner puts it, "Those forty-one principles work both ways; they make for better reading as well as better writing. They can show a reader what’s wrong with something that rings false or doesn’t make sense or leaves questions unanswered. In a climate where rumors, impressions, and outright lies are sometimes treated as fact, informed readers are more important than ever. No democracy can afford to be without readers who can ask the right questions, who can critically judge what they read, who can mentally peer over an author’s shoulder." 
 
 And tonight's big college football championship game 
 
 It's Alabama versus Georgia and, reports The Wall Street Journal this morning, "ESPN, armed with new data about its viewers, is more aggressively selling its female audience, starting with the College Football Playoff, which culminates in Monday’s championship game. The timing couldn’t be better. Advertisers are looking for new ways to reach women, and more efficiently reach broader audiences, as consumer viewing habits change." 
 
 "Financial services firm Northwestern Mutual is among the advertisers using college football to reach women and families. The company wasn’t new to the playoff, and knew that the sporting event reached a 'healthy mix of men and women and families,' but a new pitch and compelling data from ESPN helped the company 'come up with different ad spots' targeting women and families, said Aditi Gokhale, Northwestern Mutual’s chief marketing officer." 
 
 Corrections? Tips? Please email me: jwarren@poynter.org. Would you like to get this roundup emailed to you every morning? Sign up here. ||||| Story highlights A South Carolina woman was jailed overnight last week for not returning a 2005 video rental 
 
 The video, "Monster-In-Law," was from a store that's now out of business 
 
 Woman on Facebook says she moved out of state after rental and forgot about it 
 
 Kayla Michelle Finley may be wishing that services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime had been around a little earlier. 
 
 The South Carolina woman spent a night in jail last week for failing to return a video she rented -- in 2005. 
 
 It was a VHS tape. Of a Jennifer Lopez movie. 
 
 Finley, 27, was arrested Thursday in Pickens County, South Carolina, on a misdemeanor charge of failure to return the video, according to CNN affiliate WYFF-TV 
 
 The movie, "Monster-In-Law," starring Lopez and Jane Fonda as a feuding potential daughter- and mother-in-law, was rented from a video store, Dalton Videos, that is now out of business. 
 
 The WYFF report says Finley was at the county sheriff's office on another matter when an active warrant for her arrest was discovered. Chief Deputy Creed Hashe told the station that the store's owner had asked a Pickens County judge for the warrant years ago when Finley didn't return her video. 
 
 Hashe said Finley had been sent several certified letters asking her to turn herself in. 
 
 Finley spent the night in jail because her bond hearing couldn't be held until Friday morning. A judge released her on $2,000 bond. 
 
 Efforts to reach out to Finley via social media were unsuccessful early Monday. But a woman identifying herself as Finley, and whose profile picture appeared similar to Finley's mug shot, took to Fox Carolina News Facebook page on Saturday to defend herself. 
 
 She said that after renting the movie she had to move out of state because of her husband's job and that she simply forgot about it. 
 
 "I'm no criminal, but Pickens County Sheriff's office sure made me feel like I was," she wrote. 
 
 She said she never received any letters from the sheriff's office, while striking back at people who had made negative comments on the Fox post. 
 
 "If I had, it would have been taken care of immediately," she wrote. "Some of you need to quit (judging) like you are. This is a bogus charge and everyone knows it." 
 
 For Finley, it's no laughing matter. But that didn't stop folks online from commenting on the ridiculousness of it all. 
 
 "Oh god, I'm so embarrassed," wrote Twitter user Alec MacKinnon . "Now everyone is going to know I rented 'Monster In Law.' " 
 
 "They should sentence her to time already served," wrote one CNN commenter. "She'll never get the 2 hours she spent watching that movie back." 
 
 Others were taking shots at what they felt was an overreaction by law enforcement. 
 
 "Wait till they find out that she forgot to REWIND the tape!!!" annother commenter wrote. 
 
 The Pickens County Sheriff's Office did not immediately return a call seeking comment. ||||| FILE - This undated file driver's license photo provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation shows Kevin Ewing of West Finley Township, Pa. Tierne Ewing who was kidnapped at gunpoint by her... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This undated file driver's license photo provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation shows Kevin Ewing of West Finley Township, Pa. Tierne Ewing who was kidnapped at gunpoint by her husband Kevin Ewing while he was under home confinement on charges he beat and abducted her two months... (Associated Press) 
 
 PITTSBURGH (AP) — A man accused of kidnapping his wife while he was under home confinement on charges he beat and abducted her two months ago has been declared brain dead following a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said Wednesday. 
 
 The Allegheny County medical examiner's office said Wednesday that it had been "advised of the brain death" of Kevin Ewing, 47, and an autopsy was pending as Ewing remained on a ventilator until a decision about organ donation was made. 
 
 Ewing was in an undisclosed hospital after shooting himself in a West Finley Township barn, officials said. His 48-year-old wife, Tierne Ewing, was found shot to death in the same barn after state troopers surrounded it, ending a daylong manhunt Tuesday. 
 
 Ewing abducted his wife at gunpoint from his mother's home, also in West Finley, near the West Virginia border, at about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, police said. Her car was found near a wooded area eight hours later, prompting a search that ended around 9 p.m. when police surrounded the nearby barn. 
 
 Tierne Ewing's parents have questioned the way authorities handled charges against Kevin Ewing in the earlier case. 
 
 Tierne Ewing told police her husband beat and pistol-whipped her, spat on her, kept her hands tied with wire or duct tape and imprisoned in their home, often with a gun to her head from June 26 to July 8. Kevin Ewing also branded her legs with a piece of hot metal, according to a criminal complaint. 
 
 Tierne Ewing had staples — a home remedy — closing a cut on her head that she told police was the result of her husband hitting her with a wooden gun stock. 
 
 She escaped when her husband forced her into a credit union to withdraw money, only to tell tellers of her ordeal and they called police. 
 
 Ewing unexpectedly posted $100,000 bond on July 11, so a prosecutor asked a judge to put him back in jail citing an unspecified history of domestic abuse and past injuries to his wife, Washington County District Attorney Eugene Vittone said. 
 
 The judge refused but did order Kevin Ewing confined to his mother's home, without weapons, and ordered him to have no contact with his wife. He was also made to wear an ankle bracelet that would alert authorities if he left the home. 
 
 Despite the court order, his wife had been living in an apartment in his mother's home for several days before she was abducted this week, investigators said. The mother, Rose Riggle, told police that her daughter-in-law had been visiting him at her house for weeks. 
 
 Hours before Ewing abducted his wife, Riggle heard them arguing then saw him with a black revolver that belonged to her ex-husband, investigators said. 
 
 Riggle told police that her son made his wife pack bags containing food and clothes and forced her to leave the house with him. When Riggle tried to intervene, her son pushed her down, the affidavit said. 
 
 He then cut off his electronic ankle bracelet and handed it to his mother before leaving, she told police. 
 
 Riggle, reached at home Wednesday by The Associated Press, said she was aware of the court-ordered restrictions her son faced, but she hung up when questioned about them. 
 
 Tierne Ewing's father told reporters on Tuesday that Kevin Ewing had harmed his daughter repeatedly in the 38 years the couple knew each other. 
 
 "She was scared to death of him. He threatened her all the time, and he beat her up several times," Richard Kopko said after authorities told him his daughter was dead. 
 
 Online court records show Kevin Ewing pleaded guilty to simple assault and spent more than seven months in jail for an April 2001 attack on his wife. 
 
 "She told me years ago, 'Dad, if you can't ever find me, I'll be buried on his dad's farm,'" Kopko said. (The barn where the couple was found wasn't on the father's farm.) 
 
 Kopko and his wife didn't answer repeated phone calls on Wednesday.
– Denis Finley has taken to Twitter to call Politico a "whore," sniff about David Letterman's upcoming Netflix show featuring Barack Obama, and call for the destruction of all office buildings, but it was his tweets about a potential change to Vermont's driver's licenses that cost him his job as editor of the Burlington Free Press. The paper reports Finley was fired by honchos at parent company Gannett on Monday evening after he was found to have repeatedly flouted its social media rules. "We encourage our journalists to engage in a meaningful dialogue on social media, but ... the conversation [should] adhere to our overarching values of fairness, balance, and objectivity," says an exec from the USA Today Network, Gannett's main brand. Poynter explains Finley's demise came after he reacted to Vermont's proposal to add the gender option "X" to "F" and "M" on driver's licenses. The Washington Post documents the Twitter exchange between commenters who were lauding Vermont's decision and Finley. After one user noted the news was "awesome," Finley replied: "Awesome! That makes us one step closer to the apocalypse." When someone else tweeted the recognition of different genders was awesome, Finley wrote: "All recognition? … What if someone said it's awesome they are going to recognize pedophiliacs on licenses? I'm not being snarky, I'm just asking." Poynter notes some readers threatened to cancel their Free Press subscriptions over the tweets. "'Reader engagement' is not making provocative statements and then picking fights with people who disagree," an editor for a string of other local Vermont papers says. Emilie Stigliani, the Free Press' planning editor, will temporarily step in as Finley's replacement.