I heard the news about Editor & Publisher closing as I hear many things these days – through Twitter. Patrick Thornton (jiconoclast) tweeted: “Does anything better symbolize the state of print media right now than the closure of E&P? Yes things are very bad.” At first, I hoped his tweet didn’t mean what I knew it meant. But a quick search of Twitter yielded proof. Yes, E&P had told its staff Thursday that it was shutting down its print and online operation.

This shook me even more than when Gourmet announced its closure a while back. (By the way,  I found about a Gourmet’s death on Twitter, too.)

I read E&P almost religiously in my early years as a journalist. The magazine had a bright purple cover back then. I’d pretty much devour it when it arrived in my mailbox. As time went on, I didn’t renew my subscription. I’m not sure why.

The thing is I enjoyed E&P’s articles. I appreciated the reporting. In fact, in the last few years, its Web site became one of regular online haunts to find out what’s going on in the news business. Sometimes, I’d head to the E&P Web page myself, but more often I’d be drawn there by a well-worded tweet or a blog post from someone whose opinion I valued.

Read the rest of this post at Nieman Journalism Lab.

If you’ve been on Twitter or pretty much anywhere online in the recent past , you’ve learned that Twitter has been playing a key role in allowing news about the contentious presidential election in Iran to be spread throughout the world.

What’s notable is many doing the reporting are regular folks, not journalists, and the act of using Twitter  is helping them circumvent Iranian government attempts to quash information.

Interest in the topic has been fierce. The hashtag #iranelection is the top trending topic right now on Twitter and has been for quite a while. Reading the tweets in real time is illustrates the power of filterless news.

The U.S. State Department evidently see all this tweeting about the election as valuable enough that it asked Twitter to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iran, according to a Reuters report.

It’s a pivotal moment for journalism, social media and the Web for sure. Across the blogosphere and in the mainstream press, it’s being called the “Twitter revolution.” Some notable observations:

• Patrick Thornton at Beat Blogging offers some insight into how this example shows the power of social media to allow dissemination of news even when a government does pretty much all it can to stop it.

• BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis calls it the API revolution, noting that “Twitter’s architecture — which enables anyone to create applications that call and feed into it — that makes it all but impervious from blocking by tyrants’ censors.”

• New York University professor Clay Shirky calls it “The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media.”

Sure, this is a triumph for Twitter. Hopefully, it will help naysayers realize that Twitter isn’t just about what you had for lunch that day. But it is so much more than that. It’s a triumph for the “new” journalism and all it can mean for how we cover our world. Here’s why:

• Role of citizen journalism: The Iranian government restricted journalists from “unauthorized” demonstrations, but it couldn’t stop nonjournalists from tweeting what they heard, knew, saw or felt about the election. To me, that’s a perfect example of citizen journalism at its finest. It’s reporting distilled to its barest essence. And without it, the world wouldn’t know what’s happening there in quite the same way. I’m not bothered that some reporting may end up to be incorrect or incomplete, as critics will surely point out if they haven’t already.  It’s an evolving story under harsh conditions. To me, tweets aren’t a final story; they are part of the process. And the need for the world to know what’s going on is so important that we cannot wait until we have the full story. Being part of the process pulls us all into the story.
• Serious news can be hot: This event shows that people can be interested in “serious” stories. Too often, I think, some in the mainstream press believe that the masses don’t want the “important stories”  — that they just want the fluff, the Paris Hilton piece, the “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ will they break up article, the dummed-down one-quote story. To me, the attention Twitter has brought to the Iran election brings me hope that people aren’t so shallow or stupid.  I realize that while this story was buzzing on Twitter that doesn’t mean it’s hot among the general public. But I’d also guess that a person who might not seek out a story on the Iranian election, might read a tweet about one that came to them on Twitter. It takes much less effort to click on a link that shows up in your Twitter stream than it does to follow an important story through more traditional methods, but just reading that tweet could sow the seeds of interest.
• Viewers help shape coverage: In a compelling and vocal way, people were able to let the mainstream press know that they wanted more coverage of this story. People on Twitter even blasted CNN over the weekend for its failure to cover the protests of Iranian citizens claiming ballot fraud, using the hashtag #cnnfail, writes Pete Cashmore at Mashable. And what’s even more notable: CNN listened and beefed up its coverage. Talk about power of the people and engaging and listening to the readers/viewers. Cashmore notes that the lesson here isn’t that new media beats old media. It’s that people want both: unfiltered information from new media and context and meaning from traditional news organizations. Sounds like a perfect marriage to me.

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Time for some short-takes, thoughtful ideas from across the blogosphere:

Media companies of the future: Chris Brogan, a new media marketing consultant, came up with his idea of what the next media company would look like, starting from scratch. I like his ideas, especially:

• Everything is modular and linkable. Everything is fluid. Meaning, if I want the publication to be a business periodical, then I don’t want to have to read a piece about sports. (Similar to my hyperinterest idea.)
• Curators and editors rule, and creators aren’t necessarily on staff.
• Paper isn’t dead: it’s on demand.
• Collaboration rules. Why should I pick the next cover? Why should my picture of the car crash be the best?

Be sure to read his whole list as well as Globe and Mail communities editor Mathew Ingram’s take on Brogan’s ideas. (And kudos to Ingram for tipping me off to Brogan’s lsit.)

How to save newspapers: MediaShift Executive Editor Mark Glaser offers 10 steps to saving newspapers on the Knight Foundation-funded blog. It’s a list worth reading. His best points, in my opinion:

• Create a bottom-up organization where innovation is encouraged and rewarded at the edges. Use good ideas from anyone.
• Replace circulation, printing, print production staff with tech, SEO, community managers.
• Find out what the community wants in real face-to-face meetings, not focus groups. Then do what they want.
• Produce mapping and database projects. Employ or train hacker-journalists

Social media rules: More on the continuing saga of news organizations coming up with rules that suck all the social out of social media. (If you’re late to this topic, get up to speed on The New York Times’ and The Wall Street Journal’s ill-advised social media policies.) The latest culprit is Bloomberg News’ policy, which forbids staffers from communicating on social media about any topic covered by Bloomberg News, according to Gawker. Patrick Thornton at Beat Blogging offers some commentary and links to a better approach for journalists using social media.

Social media is just conversation: Social media won’t save journalism; it’s just a tool to help journalists connect with readers. But it’s also not such a mystery. It’s really just a virtual version of what normal human beings have been doing for centuries — talking to each other, getting to know one another, sharing ideas.  Dave Fleet, a marketing, communications professional, explains this well in his post, “There’s Nothing Magical About Social Media Principles.” He’s not writing for journalists, but I think his message has much for journalists who are over-thinking social media, fearing it or seeing it as complicated or cumbersome. His best takeaways: target your audience, tailor your approach and remember, you rise and fall on relationships.

I haven’t done short takes in a while, so here are some interesting finds from around the blogosphere:

The value of small talk: Steve Yelvington has the best explanation I’ve read so far for the value of social media. He compares the gabbing over Twitter, for example, that so many find banal to the glad-handed chit-chat of business meetings. He says, “Small talk is a mechanism for opening channels of communication. It’s a tool for establishing social/conversational norms and overcoming our inbred distrust of anyone outside the tribe.” Exactly. And that, my friends, is one of the big values of connecting through social media. I find it interesting that the same people who know how to “work a room” in the “real world” feel they have no time to do so in the virtual one.

What’ s killing newspapers? Patrick Thornton at The Journalism Iconoclast makes a compelling argument that complacency is. He argues that instead of being leaders with that newfangled Internet, newspapers ended up as followers, trying frantically to catch up.

“When you look at industries that ultimately fail, it’s because their leaders never thought a new technology or a new way of producing a product could come along,” he writes. What I like the most about his message it he offers hope:  “We can change the course of the future if we cast aside defeatism and complacency.” It’s worth a read.

The role of newspapers: Laura Walker offers a list of nine reasons teachers should use Twitter that are important because all nine apply not just to teachers, but to everyone. What I found most compelling about her post is how she, a nonjournalist, uses Twitter as a news gatherer.

She notes that “sitting down with a newspaper is not a luxury” she has time to enjoy everyday. So she follows smart people on Twitter who tweet her links to the latest in her areas of interest. Now we in the newspaper field can balk as we have for decades … “Well, gosh darn, she should read a newspaper.”

But that won’t matter. Here is a smart, educated woman who finds she can discover her own information sources. News organizations can be among those sources, or not. What we can’t do is change how she — and millions like her — want their information.

What should j-schools teach? Ben LaMothe at Web Publishist has an interesting post about what journalism schools should be teaching these days. He’s responding to an Editor & Publisher article by Seth Porges, who argues J-schools are “top-loading course loads with classes on coding and production” and possibly scaring less-technically inclined students away. LaMothe notes, well, I think, that it’s a shame so many journalists know so little computer technology, coding, production.

Both articles are worth a read. My two cents: I think J-schools need to teach it all –  how to tell story, how to get the mother of a murder victim to open up, how to spot government waste in documents, how to write quickly and well as well as basic html coding, how to produce and embed video, how to  figure out how to use a new Web application, etc.

I know too many journalists who don’t know how to upload a photo and have no desire to learn. As LaMothe notes, “The Web won’t just… stop. We should assume that the integration of journalism and the Web is in its infancy. Massive change is still on the horizon. As a journalist you need to be able to react to that.”

How to use Twitter: Finally, if you’re not on Twitter yet, get on it. Read my tips on how to get started and the best tools for journalists part one and two. And read a great overview of Twitter by  Ron Jones, of Search Engine Watch, and his valuable follow-up lesson. No excuses. You can’t say we didn’t explain it.

Overheard on Twitter: The best of recent days in the Twitterverse:

• @ambersmith “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I am frightened of the old ones.” –John Cage, composer, 1912-1992

• @jayrosen_nyu Jarvis to newspaper publishers: You blew it. http://is.gd/rcXD Danny Sullivan is equally scathing http://is.gd/r9fe Both are worth reading.

• @NiemanLab Minneapolis Star Tribune staffers debut “Save the Strib,” advocating their paper’s value and seeking buyers http://tr.im/ikwv

• @timwindsor “You may love the morning ritual of the paper and coffee… but do you seriously think that this deserves a subsidy?” http://is.gd/qYOG