It's not the Iranian Revolution, but Timberwolves forward Kevin Love tweeting Kevin McHale's ouster as coach offers a good case study of how the local media integrates social media into traditional reporting.

On a basic level, Love himself gets credit for the scoop, tweeting at 12:15 a.m. Wednesday morning that "Today is a sad day...Kevin McHale will NOT be back as head coach next season."

Any of the 10,000 people who follow Love got the news right then — among them, Fox9 executive sports producer Seth Kaplan, a self-described night owl who became the first mainstream reporter to post a story at 1:09 a.m.

Kaplan's original post had no other sourcing — it merely told the rest of the world what Love had said. Given the recent controversy over fake Twitter celebrity identities, how did Kaplan know @kevin_love was the real Kevin Love? "I've had some dealings with him before; I knew he was tweeting," Kaplan says. "I had more info than just his Twitter page."

Kaplan didn't let the story sit there. He had Love's cell phone number, but because of the late hour, texted the star for confirmation. Love replied, and within 20 minutes of original story, Kaplan added a line that "FOX 9 Sports confirmed Love spoke to McHale himself Tuesday night just before posting the message on Twitter."

Meanwhile, AP sportswriter Jon Krawczynski was still wide awake after covering Tuesday night's Twins game. He, too, follows Love — whom he calls "one of the more active Tweeters" — and was paying closer attention given McHale's uncertain coaching future.

Krawczynski calls the next 90 minutes "nerve-wracking. The whole thing is, am I going to get my editor in New York out of bed at 1:30 in the morning about something on Twitter?"

Like Kaplan, Krawczynski says Love's authenticity wasn't in question. AP's biggest internal discussion was whether Love was an authoritative enough source for news about McHale. Or as Krawczynski puts it, "Is he in a position to know what he knows?"

Krawczynski, whose story broke at 1:46 a.m., became the first mainstreamer to quote a second source. As his piece noted, "Upon seeing the posting, a person in the league was told McHale sent a text message to Love indicating he was not coming back. The person requested anonymity because no official announcement has been made."

Krawczynski and AP played the news more cautiously than Fox9. The station's headline and story referred to McHale being "fired," even though Love had not used that term. AP merely said "McHale will not return to Wolves."

Later Wednesday morning, Krawczynski reported McHale and the Wolves had parted "by mutual agreement." That leaves the door open to something other than a firing, though it's often a euphemism for just that.

The Strib's Jerry Zgoda subsequently quoted McHale's comment that Wolves executive David Kahn "didn’t really give me any reasons other than the fact he wanted to make a change" — which would seem to vindicate Kaplan. (A Fox9 spokesperson says the station "stands by our reporting.")

Over at the Strib, a blogger's Diet Coke and an editor's ankle tweak resulted in the story getting bigger wee-hour play.

"Your Voices" blogger Darren "Doogie" Wolfson was up late after downing "three or four" Diet Cokes at a Tuesday night get-together. Shortly after Love tweeted, Wolfson was contacted by a buddy, alerting the former KFAN personality to the comment.

Despite being over-caffeinated, Wolfson did not fire off a post immediately. He and Kaplan are pals, and the two actually chatted while each was pursuing the story. Like Kaplan, Wolfson texted Love. Later, Wolfson tweeted Love's verbatim reply: "Damn you guys are fast...let's just say I talked to mac tonight and we will leave it at that."

Wolfson posted at 2:07 a.m. Though he didn't quote from his dialogue with the player, Wolfson noted, "A text message back and forth with Love came next and he validated that he spoke with McHale."

Wolfson story might've been limited to Your Voices if foot pain didn't roust startribune.com sports coordinator Howard Sinker from a good night's sleep. After a trip to his medicine cabinet around 2:30 a.m., Sinker noticed Krawczynski's and Wolfson's pieces. He promptly made the AP story the lead on the Strib's home, sports and Wolves pages and was pleased to have Wolfson's as a sidebar.

Aside from checking Love's Twitter feed, Sinker didn't edit Wolfson's piece: "I assumed Doogie knew what he was doing."

To varying degrees, all three organizations overlaid journalistic principles on Twitter-generated content. Each had the professional history to judge the original source's veracity. Kaplan took some risks I wouldn't have, but kept pursuing confirmation from the primary source, as did Wolfson before posting. While AP didn't name their second source, they did the classic Woodward-and-Bernstein two-source thing. And in the end, all three did what media organizations increasingly must do: verify and enhance user-generated news.