When Facebook makes even the smallest move to corner a new industry, everybody listens. In yet another step closer to shutting down the world’s printing presses, Facebook is formally letting journalists know they can move articles faster and to a broader audience than any fleet of news trucks ever could.

Just this afternoon the company announced a new Facebook Page and meetup program aimed at journalists, called Journalists on Facebook. Justin Osofsky, Director of Media Partnerships for Facebook explains,

“Over the past year, we’ve worked with media organizations to help make their content more social and empower readers to experience news through their friends. Since we first launched these initiatives at the beginning of 2010, the average media organization has seen a greater than 300% increase in referral traffic from Facebook.”

He goes on to outline how media organizations are making both their websites, articles, and newsrooms more social. On top of this, he cites how journalists now look to Facebook as a reporting tool: from sourcing stories to telling stories over time and reporting while on the ground.

The Journalists on Facebook page has two main sections: Get Started and Best Practices. Get Started offers four steps, most importantly: create a separate Page for yourself as a journalist on top of your personal account. Facebook outlines how this allows you to maintain both a professional and personal presence, and also notes that a Page will offer the opportunity for more followers (did you know there is 5,000 friend maximum that comes along with your personal account?). After setting up said page, Facebook then offers that you should post articles to it (assuming you already have gained fans), engage your fans (ask questions, solicit feedback, etc.), and link it up to your mobile phone so you can send photos straight to your Page’s wall when on the go. The Best Practices section then dives into more tips for journalists to make the most of distributing their content on Facebook, such as:

• Add a Like button to your website so you can publish directly to your fans’ newsfeeds
• Be personal and share updates in the first person
• Target sharing articles to specific audiences based on their location and language via the ‘Customize’ feature
• Optimize the content you post and understand your readers using Facebook’s insights, which reveal things like fan activity and impressions on certain posts

Still unsure if the social network can move your content more meaningfully than your standard news truck? Check out these videos with Nicholas Kristof of the NYT, Arianna Huffington of the HuffPost, and the journalist panel at SXSW featuring NPR, CNET and the WSJ on why and how these major media outlets leverage Facebook.

As for the journalism meetups, Facebook will be hosting events around the globe, “to have hands-on workshops on how to use Facebook as a reporting tool, and engage in an open dialogue with the journalism community.” The first will be held at their Palo Alto headquarters the end of this month.

Clearly, this type of intimate and ongoing communication with a segment of their user base means Facebook plans to innovate and disrupt on the journalism and news distribution front. With trends in citizen journalism and the on-demand workforce, increasing time spent on the social network every day, and the power of your social graph — expect Facebook to take a very active role in shaping the future of news.