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Follow The Election News On Twitter And Skip The Babbling Pundits

Twitter is a great tool for following breaking news stories when you're just looking for the latest information and don't want to wade through an endless torrent of bull from pundits, analysts, commentators, and bloggers. Many news organizations feed their headlines to Twitter, and following those accounts gives you a concentrated source of facts without the fluff. On Election Night, I'll be looking to Twitter as my main source of information.

Headline services on Twitter include:

Fox News

The International Herald-Tribune

The New York Times

CNN

NPR News

Google News US

Drudge Report

USA Today On Politics

The Wall Street Journal

The list also includes two names you might not recognize:

Christian Activities, a Nashville service describing itself this way: "Publishing Christian concert information, articles, interviews and more for 20 years." They plan to begin updating news to Twitter at 6:30 pm Central/7:30 pm Eastern.

And BreakingNewsOn. Who are they? I have no idea. Their Twitter profile says they're based in the Netherlands, and their Web site hardly provides any information about them at all, except that they're a wire service devoted to breaking news. Google doesn't turn up much information about them either. Nonetheless, their Twitter feed is a very good source of headlines.

I first learned the value of using Twitter to keep up with breaking news during the Southern California fires last year. The TV news was filled with endless chatter and speculation and man-in-the-street interviews. I was interested in none of that. What I wanted to know was: Where are the fires? Are they close to our house? Twitter cut through the nonsense and provided that essential information.

Likewise, Tuesday night, all I'm going to be interested in is who's winning, and (eventually) who won.

I asked Twitter co-founder Biz Stone if he could add any feeds to our list of breaking news feeds, and he pointed me at the Twitter Brand Index, which has evolved into the terrific Social Brand Index, which lists companies participating in Twitter and the competing Identi.ca service, broken down by industry. Check out their media index for your favorite local or international news source, as well as special-interest publications (such as your favorite technology publication).

What are your favorite Twitter news feeds? Let us know.

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