[nicholsonpk]

"It was a parody account, which was labeled as such."

I'm looking at the page now and you use the Mountain View California city crest as the image, "MV Police Blotter" as the title, and it is described as "Keeping tabs on crime in Mountain View, Ca. Not affiliated with MVPD, see @MountainViewPD. Report all emergencies to 911."

That does not read as "this is parody" to me. You may not have intended to deceive but I would bet most people visiting would expect this to be actual police blotter information.

[jjulius]

And yet wouldn't we expect a journalist who reads a tweet from an account that says, as you pointed out, "Not affiliated with MVPD," to do their due diligence and reach out to an official channel?

I can grant that it doesn't actually say "parody" in it's description, but we should still be expecting more effort from reporters.