I had no idea this was a trend. How could anyone ever think this is a good idea? You'd think the editors at wired would be able to copy and paste, surely that's easier than embedding 45 tweets.

While this is technically true, you also need to adhere to Twitter's TOS if you're going to use their product.

Or Wired could do some actual journalism and, I don't know, interview the original poster plus ask her ex-boss and Google for comments plus try and track down the mysterious other man?

Journalists don't need to obey a TOS (at least in the US where it is specifically protected in the constitution "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;"), watch the news sometime they don't get consent forms for all the people walking by in man on the streets segments. (Or a better example where news outlets published details from the snowden leaks)

I guess if all you want to do is post a bunch of tweets and not write any context or additional information about it this is the way to do it, but if you actually want to be a journalist TOS means nothing.

30 tweets makes 30 times the claim on attention of your followers, regardless of content. A single tweet is 30 times less likely to be read. This is a structural inefficiency of the twitter platform.

Quick and easy articles. Your effort is compiling the tweets and inserting a lead.

Nope, /much/ better to light up my phone 30 times. ;)