CNN has iReport. Reuters has You Witness News Your View. Now, smaller news organizations can get into the game of soliciting online video from their communities–for free.
YouTube Direct, launching today, allows any newsroom to run a virtual assignment desk on the Web. WHDH-TV in Boston is already doing it; so is the Huffington Post. NPR and Politico have signed on, too, according to YouTube.
The open-source tool lets users upload video to YouTube without leaving the news organization’s page. Newsrooms can ask for contact information so they can follow up. A moderation tool lets editors review and approve videos for display on their sites. And approved videos will carry the news organization’s branding on YouTube.
“We help you curate” user-created content, says Aaron Zamost. “It’s a win win.”
Among the possible uses: soliciting eyewitness video of breaking news; crowd-sourcing a reporting project; or asking for community comments on the news, as WHDH did after Sunday’s Patriots football game.
Did we mention that the tool is free? Anyone see a downside to this? It may be competition for citizen-journalism sites like iReport, but from a local newsroom perspective, it sounds like a plus. Sure, you wouldn’t have exclusive content because the video will live on YouTube where anyone can see it. But you’d know where it came from, you’d have the rights to use it, and you wouldn’t have to store it on your server. Worth trying, don’t you think?
