Newspapers have embraced Twitter in the past year or two, adding the microblogging service to their roster of online tools to help prop up their bottom line. Most use Twitter as a means of broadcasting their featured articles, but others have created separate Twitter accounts for each section of the paper, or use Twitter as a two-way communication tool with their readers.

The Wrap took a look at the top 25 newspapers on Twitter now compared to four months ago, to see how traditional media is faring in 140-characters or less.

It probably won’t come as a surprise if we say it outright: The New York Times is the #1 newspaper on Twitter. And it has the competition beat by a mile.

The New York Times (@NYTimes) has over 3,000,000 followers – and that’s just on its main Twitter account. If you add up all of the other Times accounts (@NYTimesBooks, @NYTimesNational, @NYTimesScience, etc), the number is likely closer to 5,000,000.

Compare this to the second most-followed account on Twitter, the Chicago Tribune (@coloneltribune), which has about 830,000 followers, and you can see just how far ahead of the competition The New York Times really is on Twitter.

What’s really interesting to look at in this list is the percentage change each newspaper saw between October 2010 and March 2011. Although The New York Times was, and is, the largest newspaper presence on Twitter, it’s percentage growth is small: just 15% during the past four months. The others in the top 5 ranged from 46% to 90% growth.

Here are the top 25 newspapers on Twitter, by follower count:

Of course, this list only looks at follower count, not engagement, influence or other metrics. And as we’ve said before, there are many other metrics that are important to look at beyond follower count to judge how effectively someone is tweeting. Still, this list gives us some pretty good insight into what newspapers have the largest audiences on Twitter.