Who is the best and fastest Twin Cities news source?

On Twitter, that is.

I like reading my news through Twitter. I get a quick headline and if it intrigues me, I can click on the link to read more.

But the Twin Cities are full of choices for local news. Which news feeds should you follow? Which ones are just full of clutter? Which delivery the news the fastest?

I'm forging ahead with a very unscientific exercise: follow every Twin Cities news source I can find and see who delivers the best news.

Factors will include:

1. Who posts first
2. Who posts the most breaking news
3. Whose overall posts are most relevant (in other words, is there a ton of white noise to sift through to get to the big, breaking news, or is it a feed with enough other relevant content to make it worth following?)

I don't know how long this will last, but I'm hoping to make it through at least the end of January.

While the third factor in my list is fairly subjective, the other two aren't.

Here are the feeds I'm following for this:

Star Tribune (@MN_news)
Pioneer Press (@pioneerpress)
WCCO (@wccobreaking)
KARE (@kare11)
KSTP (@kstp)
KMSP (@myfox9)
WCCO AM (@wcco830)

I realize there are others. The Star Tribune has WAY too many Twitter feeds to keep track of, which is a major annoyance. I'm following the one most commonly used by them, but they also use a few others, including @minn_news and @startribune. (For reference, 7 of the 8 news stories I've tracked so far have been posted by @startribune; all 8 were posted by @MN_news, with only one story breaking on @startribune before @MN_news.)

Additionally, I did not include news aggregators like @twincitieslocal or @MinnesotaNews since they simply spew an endless stream of links to other sites. I also removed regional feeds focusing only on one area of the Twin Cities metro as well as organizations that don't focus as much on breaking news (@minnpost, for example).

The goal here is not to follow those who post the best investigative stories. We're talking about breaking news where it's as simple as typing, "Here's what just happened." In other words, if I stuck my head out of the window, I would have seen the same thing. I just need you to tell me about it so I know that it happened too.

I've been tracking this since January 1st and the results have been interesting. So far, the Star Tribune (@MN_news), KARE 11 (@kare11), and WCCO AM (@wcco830) are leading the pack, with Fox 9 (@myfox9) trailing far behind everyone else.

More comprehensive totals will come at the conclusion of this little game. If I'm missing any good local Twitter news feeds, let me know.