On the Meet the Press Press Pass, David Gregory had a really interesting interview with Ben Smith of BuzzFeed about the influence of Social Media on the 2012 election and the media itself.  I would agree with Smith completely when he says:

Both campaigns were aggressively engaged on Twitter, adding that campaigning is "basically the communications business.” One of the prime reasons for being engaged so heavily in the medium, Smith argues, is because both sides are interested in “shaping reporters’ first impressions” of events – and Twitter is a venue in which consensus can be built by a few influential members of the press corps that cover the candidates.

Not only does the rapid rise of social media help presidential campaigns and the reporters that cover them, Smith said it allows ordinary citizens to join the public discourse as well.

"People who had previously been outside could see that conversation and jump into it if they had interesting things to say."

Smith noted that for buzzfeed, twitter is their front page. You can see the video of the full interview here, it is worth a watch: