YouTubeʼs bold foray into journalism

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Last week, the worldʼs largest video sharing site, YouTube, has launched a new service, named YouTube Direct . Through this latest offering from the Silicon Valley firm, conglomerates in journalism will be able to use YouTubeʼs open API and other public source codes to implement tailored video sharing platforms on their own websites, allowing freelancers, civilian reporters, and amateur video journalists to upload their videos directly to some of the most prominent newspaper sites. This concept is different from the conventional method of uploading videos to YouTube, as professional editors of various news reporting firms hold the right to review and screen videos transmitted to them by amateur reporters of all kinds. In other words, the public now has an opportunity to share their stories through notorious organizations, such as The Washington Post, ABC News, and the American NPR. For these news giants, the upside lies in the fact that they are now able to plant YouTubeʼs stable video sharing platforms directly within their online presence without dipping into the negative zone for budget. Considering that many of them are experiencing deficits, YouTube Direct might garner some enthusiastic media supporters.
YouTube believes that this service will pave the path for a new era of civilian journalism, while bestowing organizations the possibility of publishing firsthand, realtime video reports from various parts of the world – including those hit by abrupt natural disasters or wars – without having to dispatch their own professional reporters to the spot. YouTube thus proclaims that their newest offering will prompt maturity of civilian journalism. Fortunately for the news organizations, YouTube Directʼs official page already provides API that will bring the concept into action, as well as a detailed guidebook that will help the firms customize, plant, and exploit the video sharing platform – even in a personalized widget form.

As of today – in addition to those previously mentioned – various other firms, like The Huffington Post, which is already perceived as a leader in civilian and blog journalism, San Francisco Chronicle, and a Boston-based broadcasting company, WHDH-TV, are expanding their interaction with the public by using YouTube Direct. The Huffington Post, for instance, is currently holding a video contest, through which it will select a civilian journalist to be sent to the UN Climate Change Conference, to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark between December 7 and 18, 2009. This contest is coordinated in conjunction with a nonprofit organization, called Hopenhagen (www.hopenhagen.org), to choose 10 finalists from a pool of public journalists, civilians, and bloggers, who will submit their own videos using the platform offered by YouTube Direct. Among these 10, one winner will be selected earlier next month, named Hopenhagen Ambassador, and dispatched to the UN Conference in Denmark. This Hopenhagen Ambassador will carry on an active role as a civilian journalist, interviewing politicians from 192 member states, social activists, and environmentalists, as well as reporting behind-the-scene footages of the conference. The stories and videos submitted by the winner will be directly published on the Huffington Post website and YouTube.

Another renowned media, the American National Public Radio, is also holding a contest called The WONDERSCOPE: Sciency Stuff Through Your Eyes. Readers of the NPR will be able to upload a short video, ranging from 30 seconds to 3 minutes, by December 17, 2009, and the winner selected by a panel of professional editors will see his or her video introduced on the homepage of the NPR site. The general topic for this contest is time, and readers can submit videos about any relevant curiosities, like “Why does it feel like time flies quicker as we get older?” or “Can time be scientifically measured?” Again, the contest is made possible by YouTube Direct, and the awarded video will be published both on NPR and YouTube, simultaneously. Besides from these rather serious competitions, The San Francisco Chronicle is encouraging its readers to upload videos of local festivals and street performances to portray the Thanksgiving season in the States. ABC News is also receiving videos through YouTube Direct platform to publish Thanksgiving messages from its public viewers.
The New York Times recently analyzed that YouTube Direct will become a strong threat to CNNʼs iReport (www.ireport.com), which also allows amateurs to freely upload videos to the site. The Reuters also claimed that YouTube Direct will serve as a catalyst to the expansion of news organizationsʼ interaction with the public, as the firms can now implement a reliable video sharing platform at no extra cost and receive reports and communications submitted by civilians. While the service was launched with the active use of several news reporting behemoths, YouTube Direct may also be utilized widely in the private commercial sector. For one, companies can plant YouTube Direct into their corporate sites and blogs to promote their newest products or services by holding various marketing activities based on free video submission and publishing. As an extension of that thought, one can also imagine potential exploitation by nonprofit organizations, politicians, and even government offices to plant the YouTube platform within their own web domain to increase interaction with the public.

It all seems brilliant, but there may also be some critical aspects of this new service. For example, by pulling media and news corporations onto their sides, YouTube is now actually capable of collecting their upcoming contents for free. If this is seen as an unequal capitalization on the part of YouTube, it certainly will not bode well for its parent company, Google, who has already created a deep gorge of conflicts with some prominent media firms by gathering and amassing their contents at no cost – all for the sake of its content search objectives. And as for professional journalists hired by the firms, they cannot rest at ease at the sight of this emergence of YouTube Direct, as it creates a whole new array of possibilities for civilian journalists and amateur reporters to gain more authority. If the freelancers and their reports become more attractive in the future, all the penny-saving news media corporations will surely prefer the public over their salary-seeking professionals.
Even at this moment, the boundaries between journalism and public and distinctions between professionals and amateurs are crumbling down all thanks to YouTube Direct. But, be careful: Googleʼs intents, as exemplified by this rather sneaky backdoor entrance into journalism under the sweet guise of free platform renting offer, may not be so innocent and generous in the long run.