Can WaPo Explain Official Tweet That Benghazi Tweeters Are 'Rich, Middle-Aged Men and Chick-fil-A Lovers'?

Many conservatives are crying foul over a tweet from the official Washington Post twitter account during the House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday on the September 11, 2012 attack on a U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

"Whoa. That can’t be true, can it?" Twitchy posted on the tweet. "Yes, it is. This is the bilge offered up by The Washington Post’s Twitter feed this afternoon."

"What a disgrace," the post read after an image of the embedded tweet.

The Washington Post tweet drew replies from several well known conservative twitter users offended by what they perceived to be the Post's portrayal of those interested in the hearing.

"Thanks for your constructive response to a national tragedy" @instapundit responded.

"Behold the dying 'mainstream' media. Good riddance" tweeted author Brad Thor.

"Hi @washingtonpost not only am I tweeting about Benghazi, I'm at the hearing wearing a red dress & heels," TownHall's Katie Pavilich wrote in response to the demographics mentioned in the Post tweet. "Not exactly a rich-middle aged man"

The tweet links to a post by Caitlin Dewey on WashingtonPost.com's live blog on the hearing. The Post's social media reporter writes that according to analysis by DemographicsPro.com on "Who's tweeting about #Benghazi," the majority of users discussing the Benghazi hearing on Twitter fall into the demographics in her headline.

Thousands of people have tweeted on the #Benghazi hashtag since the September attack, helping disseminate, and even steer, the divisive political narrative of what happened that night.

Thanks to Demographics Pro, a Twitter analysis firm, we have some vague idea of who’s tweeting the most: According to their report, #Benghazi tweeters are 58.3% male, with an average age of 52.6 years and a median income of $61,800 (“within the top 20 percent of overall Twitter distribution,” the report adds).

The tweeters are also overwhelmingly white and married, according to Demographics Pro; they also like Chick-fil-A and Walmart — two brands most often associated with conservatives.

Both The Washington Post and Dewey tweeted later that afternoon clarifying that the earlier tweet was in reference to statistics from the Demographics Pro report.

Still, Tim Graham from the conservative media watchdog Newsbusters notes that there may have been some subjective selection of which demographics to tweet from the report.

"The Post didn't notice that the same crack research firm also finds Benghazi tweeters like Starbucks and Whole Foods," Graham writes. "Who brands often associated with liberals."