Mark Knoller (@markknoller)

I am pretty active on Twitter, and there are a few people who have mastered the art of reporting on Twitter. Mark Knoller is one of them. The CBS News White House correspondent tweets a few times a day, usually in the morning with an overview of the President's schedule, and then during the day with periodic updates.

I read Twitter feeds in Tweet Deck, and have Tweet Deck open at work during the day. So each new tweet from Knoller shows up in the upper right corner of the screen (a standard feature on Tweet Deck). Reading Knoller's Tweets is both informative and entertaining. His rolling commentary makes one feel like they are actually following the President and his staff around.

This was particularly the case this past Thursday, when Knoller posted tweets quite often about the President's summit on healthcare. When he made his first few tweets, I sent him a direct tweet, noting how I trust him to post tweets "of value." Within minutes, his reply came:

@rosslevanto if i only tweeted items of value, you might not hear from me ever again.

I can't imagine another platform that allows someone to interact directly with a White House correspondent. I applaud Mark Knoller for his use of Twitter. His updates show his personality. Previously, I would not have thought of watching CBS News (I prefer NBC and MSNBC). But I just might start now.

You can follow Mark (yep, we're on first name basis, now) on Twitter at @markknoller. If you are a political junkie like me, following him should be a requirement.