World Leaders get their news from the New York Times, Reuters, CNN and the Economist

The New York Times is the single most popular news source on Twitter, followed by a fifth of all world leaders, according to the latest Twiplomacy analysis by the global PR firm Burson-Marsteller.

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The @NYTimes Twitter account is followed by almost 22% of the 647 world leaders and is ahead of @Reuters, @CNNbrk @TheEconomist and the @BBCWorld Twitter accounts.

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Burson-Marsteller’s analytics team analyzed the most followed Twitter accounts by the 647 heads of state and government and ministers of foreign affairs and their institutions on Twitter.

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CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Fareed Zakaria and the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof are the three most popular journalists followed by world leaders.

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CNN’s Christiane Amanpour @CAmanpour is the most popular journalist among all world leaders, followed by 69 of them. Her colleague @FareedZakaria is followed by 43 world leaders and the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof and Paul Krugman have each 36 world leaders following them. The founder of the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington is in fifth position with 26 world leaders among her 1.6 million followers.

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Overall broadcast journalists are the most popular and especially CNN newscasters. All CNN’s news and journalists accounts combined are among the most popular news sources for world leaders, followed 593 times. The BBC comes in second position with 408 accounts following its Twitter accounts and the New York Times places third.

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The analysis shows that the @UN is the single most followed Twitter account by world leaders, ahead of @BarackObama, the @WhiteHouse, the @StateDept, @Number10gov and the @EU_Commission.

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Burson-Marsteller’s own @Twiplomacy Twitter account has also made it into the list, followed by 126 heads of state and governments and ministers of foreign affairs.

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The full rankings can be downloaded here.