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The Most Influential Journalists on Twitter
A Ranking of the Most Powerful and Connected Media Personalities
Why Twitter?
With news that Elon Musk is acquiring Twitter for a hefty premium, the obvious question many are asking is, why? From the man himself:
Indeed Twitter more than any other social media platform shapes the stories that dominate our lives. In particular, one very powerful group of Twitter users is responsible for this — journalists.
News writers and other media figures were among the first to widely adopt the platform and they are the ones who take twitter information wars to the masses. As renowned tech analyst Ben Thompson put it:
“most people don’t get their news off of Twitter; the places they get their news, though, are driven by Twitter”.
As anyone on the social network will tell you, they see most news days ahead of everyone else. From Covid policy to culture wars, many news stories originate via online posts, debates and controversies. By the time the current thing makes it to a major paper, chances are it will have been kicking around the bird app for a while.
Twitter as Journalist Network
Analyst Thompson is also astute in describing how the social nature of Twitter shapes the people delivering our major narratives. From Thompson:
“Twitter not only sets the agenda for media organizations, it also harmonizes coverage, thanks to a dynamic where writers, unmoored from geographic constraints or underlying business realities of their publications, end up writing for other writers on Twitter, oftentimes radicalizing each other in plain site of their readership””
