In the year that Mediaite has been around, it’s certainly been an interesting time for the media world. As Mediaite quickly established itself as one of the go-to sites covering the media industry, legacy media outlets finally began to come to terms with social media — particularly the New York Times and the Washington Post, two of the most storied newspapers in America. In the past year, these news organizations and others began to incorporate social media into their plans – but with varying objectives.

If you are a follower of the New York Times you are probably familiar with the blog NYTPicker, the website that “devotes itself exclusively to the goings-on inside the New York Times — the newspaper and the institution itself.” In other words, they watch the goings on at the Times better than most including, arguably, the Times. But who are they?

The New York Times Social Media Editor Jen Preston (@NYT_JenPreston) has come under fire in the past for not using her Twitter account to its greatest effect. But Preston took to twitter like an expert last night to engage in a discussion over the NYT.com’s controversial removal of a Media Decoder post.

Here’s a trick, for those of you flying on those quaint old-fashioned airlines that still don’t have wifi: Make sure your Tweetdeck is locked and loaded with all sorts of juice before you get on a plane, and then spend the next hour or so catching up with the 140-character brilliance of those you follow. That’s what I did this morning as I flew back home from Toronto (and boy are my arms tired! Wa-wa) – and as I found myself making mental notes to retweet a few when on the ground, I thought, why not a group retweet?

NYT Co. PR chief Catherine Mathis resigned yesterday to take up a post at the ratings agency Standards & Poor’s. It’s no secret the Times has been suffering a barrage of bad press this year, mostly to do with its finances. So should this resignation come as a surprise, or is Mathis just an early casualty of the new media PR world?

The eagle-eyed folks over at NYTPicker have picked up on the fact that Preston, who only activated her Twitter account on the day she was hired to the position, hasn’t tweeted in a month.