It all started late Sunday afternoon, when CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry tweeted a link to a blog post he wrote that said the White House believes Democratic Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley will lose Tuesday’s special Senate election to Republican Scott Brown.

News of Editor and Publisher shutting down made the rounds on Twitter in a hurry on Thursday. It escalated up the site’s “trending topics” as it was tweeted and retweeted hundreds of times in just minutes.

In fact, many said they first heard the news through Twitter – including Gina Chen and myself as a matter of fact. It makes sense, as journalists are following journalists, and the news spread quickly from one person to the next.

Twitter began rolling out its latest feature – “lists” – to select users this week, with plans to opening it up to everyone soon.

Earlier this month, journalism professor and mindcast-extraordinaire Jay Rosen had his followers scratching their heads when he made this prediction:

1. 
   jayrosen_nyu You’ll find out yourself soon enough, but I’m telling you now. “Lists” are going to change Twitter http://jr.ly/4jm4 04 Oct 2009 from web

The Washington Post took swift action after controversial tweets from one of its managing editors Raju Narisetti disclosed opinions on healthcare reform and the hospitalization of Sen. Robert Byrd.

Not only has Narisetti since closed his Twitter account, but the Post on Friday implemented a series of new social networking guidelines. It says the guidelines had previously been in the works, but editors “decided to accelerate the completion of [them]” after the Narisetti incident.

The other day, I took a look at how the Associated Press used Twitter to cover the Sonia Sotomayor hearings.

It was a landmark experiment for that organization, and it seems the most extensive such project, fueled by a team of eight. But live tweets during the hearings weren’t limited to the AP.

The Associated Press is trying something it’s never tried before with its coverage of the Sonia Sotomayor hearings.

It’s providing round-the-clock tweets at @AP_Courtside, documenting every move of the hearings, allowing the general public easy access to some of AP’s best talent, and using feedback to direct the coverage itself. And that’s not all.

Lance Ulanoff said it best in his column at PCMag.com: “As I watched this unfold, I likened Twitter to a bad game of telephone.”

He’s referring to Thursday, June 25, when breaking news of Michael Jackson being rushed to a hospital and later the announcement of his death took Twitter by storm for hours, while rumors surfaced of Jeff Goldblum and Harrison Ford’s deaths as well.

If you pull up the latest #IranElection tweets and sift through a couple pages, you’re sure to find them.

Retweets from Iran. Sometimes they say “RT from Iran,” others “RT Iran,” and others just “RT” with Iran elsewhere in the message. Unlike normal retweets, they don’t include the name of the original Twitterer for their protection and safety.

That begs the question – Are they reliable?

Alister Cameron, a blogger and avid Twitter user in Melbourne, Australia, tweeted the following today:

1. 
   alicam Great quote from last week: “Will Iran’s election be for Twitter what the first Gulf War was for CNN?” 21 Jun 2009 from TweetDeck

He could be on to something.

It’s June 2009. If you’re a journalist and you’re not on Twitter, you should be, in my humble opinion. It’s my hope that this blog will help skeptics find value in the service, teach newbies new tricks and also prove valuable to regular Tweeters.