Twitter and Traditional Media: Rivals or Lovers?

Not long ago, the media looked at the web as if it was an awkward, unwanted stepchild. Today, the reverse is arguably true, with debate growing over whether social networks such as Twitter will overtake beacons of journalism like The New York Times.

At last month's Milken Institute Global Conference, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel said he thinks Twitter will outlast The Times. His reasoning: Its business strategy is more solid than that of the storied newspaper.

The debate got journalists talking on forums such as Muck Rack, with many people disagreeing. Some said it isn't a mutually exclusive relationship, or that one's success is predicated on the other's failure.

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Comments from Twitter's CEO seem to support this. At All Things D's conference last week, Dick Costolo took the opposite approach to Thiel, and essentially called Twitter a friend to media companies — whether they're print, television or strictly online.

"We think of ourselves as very complementary to news orgs," he told All Things D's Kara Swisher. "We're the platform for global information distribution for the people, by the people. The news orgs are the curators, the editors, the analysts. They do that important work."

When Swisher asked if Twitter is looking to expand and morph into a news organization, Costolo said that's not in the microblogging network's future: "No, I see us partnering more with news orgs to distribute this real-time feed of info, probably working with companies that can help organize that information and dole it out to news org readers."

Detractors aside, many media pundits see the two as far more intertwined than anyone envisioned when Twitter debuted seven years ago.

"I think they're in love," press critic and New York University professor Jay Rosen told Mashable. "Nothing more to say."

This mutual affection has helped Twitter and other social networks become tools for journalists, according to Dan Pacheco, chair of journalism innovation at Syracuse University's Newhouse School. Rather than pitting news organizations against Twitter, Pacheco said there should be a focus on "the emergence of journalists as social-media brands."

Twitter has enabled journalists to amplify their voices and brands, he said, thereby helping them get more attention than they previously would have without the social network.

"The brands with most impact will be connected to individual journalists," Pacheco told Mashable. "For example, The New York Times' David Carr (@carr2n) has 420,000 Twitter followers that he built through authentic usage of the social media ... Is that all David Carr on Twitter, or all New York Times? It's a little of both."

Mark Glaser, executive editor of PBS MediaShift, agrees that it's all about making Twitter work for news organizations as a partner, rather seeing it as an enemy.

"The idea for publishers and news orgs is that they need to work Twitter to their advantage," Glaser said, citing driving site traffic, and selling sponsored tweets, as examples. "All these deals between Twitter and ESPN, Fox, etc., seem to be additive to the publishers and helpful, as long as these deals are not exclusive."

Therein lies the irony: As news organizations vie for eyeballs and page views, they are getting those numbers largely from posts on social sites — the new pathways to news. Last year, a report by the Pew Research Center showed exactly where Internet users are spending their time, and from where they're getting their news. The answer is increasingly social networks.

Pew found that the average Facebook user spent about 423 minutes a month on the site compared to under 12 minutes per month on a top 25 news site. While Facebook users consume news differently than Twitter users (with Facebookers getting more news from friends and family, as opposed to friends, family and news outlets for Twitter users), and most people are still going straight to news websites for their information, the tide is turning more towards social becoming a go-to source.

Such an intimate relationship between news consumption and social platforms such as Twitter therefore cannot be ignored.

"The key for publishers is to make sure they can own the relationships between themselves and fans/followers," Glaser said. "And not let Twitter get that."

Mashable composite: image via iStockphoto, macroworld