Our cover story this week is how Twitter has not only changed the way we, as individuals, communicate, but also how it's changed the way we, as journalists, do our jobs.

Using Twitter as a bona fide journalistic resource is taking some time to get used to, but we're coming along. We've started live tweeting from various events, and providing our readers and followers with real-time updates and commentary on concerts, plays, club events and even movies.

It's a far cry from the traditional, morning-after concert or play review, but we're finding that it's also reaching some readers at a speed and format they prefer — quick, short bites of info that can be easily read and passed on. And so we've embraced it, for the most part, and have so far tweeted from the recent Eddie Vedder concert, the opening night of "Heartbeat Hawaii" and last week's pre-screening of the film "Julie & Julia," hosted by Chef Mavro for the media and foodie community.

But when it comes down to it, is a live tweet as good as an old-fashioned review? There are certainly pros and cons to the live tweet, the most glaring of the cons being that there's no time to verify that the information you're sending out is accurate. Is the name of that song really "A Pirate Looks at 40"? And is it a Jimmy Buffett song? You might think you know, but you could be wrong. And when you're Twittering, there's no time to check. That's a nightmare for a journalist. Not being able to verify information and risk looking like a poser? No, thank you.

And Twitter is no friend of writers. Because writers like words. Lots of words. Twitter lets you say what you have to say in 140 characters or less, period. So you can forget that paragraph-long description of the impressive stage set, and edit yourself down to something more like this: The set is impressive. Good props. Nice lighting. Really draws you in.

Eloquent? Hardly. Adequate? Yes.

On the upside, there's no pressure to sound pretty. It's speed over beauty, and honestly, it's kind of freeing. You get the info out there, and that's that. Plus, live tweeting lets you break the silence — it allows you to talk, sound off and think out loud during a movie or a play.

It keeps up with your brain, then lets you tell the world what you're seeing, feeling, thinking and doing at the same you're seeing, feeling, thinking and doing it.

Isn't that the feeling we want to get when we read a review of the U2 concert that we couldn't attend? Don't we want to feel like we were there? As if we had been standing next to the person writing the story? With Twitter, we can all be there. In real time. Conversing. Opining. Asking questions. Disagreeing. Even if we can't actually be there.