Facebook and Twitter Deliver the News

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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As most people can remember, for decades, or maybe longer, the traditional way to get the news was from the news media itself. Direct access to opinions and hard news reporting were at the core of what people found out about the world around them, even if they thought some of the media were biased. Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) and Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) have changed that to a great extent. People on these social networks share news sources and stories with one another. That, by its nature, cuts out some of the value of consumers directing themselves to original news and information.

According to Pew Research Center journalism and media experts:

The new study, conducted by Pew Research Center in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, finds that clear majorities of Twitter (63%) and Facebook users (63%) now say each platform serves as a source for news about events and issues outside the realm of friends and family. That share has increased substantially from 2013, when about half of users (52% of Twitter users, 47% of Facebook users) said they got news from the social platforms.

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While Facebook bests Twitter by most tradition measures, including membership size, revenue and market value, Twitter has an edge as a source for current news:

Although both social networks have the same portion of users getting news on these sites, there are significant differences in their potential news distribution strengths. The proportion of users who say they follow breaking news on Twitter, for example, is nearly twice as high as those who say they do so on Facebook (59% vs. 31%) — lending support, perhaps, to the view that Twitter’s great strength is providing as-it-happens coverage and commentary on live events.

Both social media encourage members to “deliver” news or entertainment to their friends or associates. At its core, this practice has a certain amount of bias, as it focuses member attention based on subjective, second-party direction. However, many people do not want to search scores of news or entertainment sites. Social media helps them avoid the time required to make the effort to directly explore newspapers, radio and television. Instead they can simply look at news sources offered by friends. However, as friends become more important, the opportunity for selective judgment about what is important in the world and what is not, based on these original sources, disappears.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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