Who Retweets Whom? How Digital and Legacy Journalists Interact on Twitter

Traditional journalists’ online interactions primarily focus on others from their professional sector. New York Times journalists retweeted traditional media organizations and journalists 63 percent of the time, while retweeting digital journalists and organizations in only 10 percent of cases, and hybrid in 8 percent. Reading through these traditional journalists’ tweets felt a little like listening in on newsroom chatter—reporters kibitzed about sports, complimented one another’s work, and traded commentary about political events. While there was certainly some reaching across publications, this was limited to places like the Washington Post or ABC News. It would appear, then, that for traditional political journalists, little has changed: they are primarily interested only in other high-prestige, traditional reporters.

This was manifestly not the case, however, for digital journalists. The most frequently retweeted other digital journalists, and while they did so at a lower rate than traditional journalists retweeted one another (45 percent versus 63 percent for traditional), this still represents a marked turnaround from previous trends. What emerges is a portrait of a professional sector trying assiduously to assert itself and its particular set of values and norms.