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Top journalists give tips on YouTube

When it comes to content, YouTube has a reputation for silly home movies, amateur music videos and, in many cases, copyright infringements.

Lately, YouTube has been working hard to change this perception. In addition to taking a firm, proactive stand against copyright infringement, it has also secured premium content partners including record labels, tv networks and gained some prominent exclusive content such as the Calvacade of Cartoon Comedy by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane.

In a pair of recent initiatives, YouTube has taken this effort to raise

its profile even further by reaching out to journalists, both professional and amateur. The first initiative revolves around the opening of a partner program to all news organisations already accepted into Google News. The second involves a new Reporters Center at which professional journalists give advice to working citizen newsgatherers.

The goal of these initiatives is to gear YouTube toward a more professional audience, making it a resource for hosting journalistic works and educating budding news reporters about the best methods for information gathering.
The question is whether news organisations will accept YouTube as a partner. Although a great deal of citizen journalism is hosted on YouTube, as during the Iran election riots, mainstream media has been slow to embrace the world’s No. 1 video sharing site.

Buddy up

On 28 June, YouTube announced in a blog post that it is opening up registration for its YouTube Partner Program to all news organisations currently listed in Google News, a list of more than 25,000 newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV networks and more. The network, which was previously only available to providers of entertainment content, such as record labels for music videos, offers a variety of benefits:

• Premium placement on YouTube’s site
• Access to YouTube’s existing audience
• Revenue sharing on ads placed in and around videos uploaded
• The ability to cut costs by hosting resource-intensive videos on YouTube’s servers
• Viewership analysis that closely tracks how many people view each video and provides demographic information

This partnership will appeal to many news organisations, especially smaller ones. Those wanting to get more into video but lacking the infrastructure or ad networking to make it possible will most appreciate what YouTube has to offer. Not only can organisations upload as much content as they want, place it where they want on their site and host it, they also receive a share of the revenue and get to tap into YouTube’s native audience.

Alternatives do exist, though. Content delivery networks such as Limelight Networks and BitGravity offer relatively inexpensive video delivery to large organisations. Although a system must be around these hosts, they eliminate the need to keep large amounts of servers and bandwidth readily available for video streaming.

 

Sites still interested in joining the YouTube Partner Program need to apply to be listed in Google News if they are not in the database already. Videos may then be admitted for consideration in the YouTube Partner Program. Once both reviews are complete and your site is accepted, the organisation is then a part of the programme.

News organisations that routinely deal with video will likely wish to avoid using YouTube’s system. They have their own ad sales team that can earn more per advertisement than a simple revenue share with Google. But it may be right for smaller organisations or non-video ones that wish to dabble in the medium. 

YouTube’s new advertising partnerships, though, allow some magazines and news organisations to sell advertising next to their own content. This may indicate a change of direction that could prove very fruitful for news organisations of all stripes.

How To: Craft an important story

YouTube’s other journalistic initiative is the launch of its new Reporter’s Center, which posts videos and guides from top American journalists.

Some of the current videos in the new channel include CBS News’ Katie Couric explaining how to conduct a good interview, NPR’s Scott Simon on how to tell a good story and The Associated Press Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier on how to do “watchdog” journalism.

The videos tend to be short, simple guides in laypman’s language about how to report on the news. The videos are no substitute for actual journalism school, but they provide helpful hints and tricks on how to do reporting.

The videos also include tutorials about how to prepare captured footage for use on YouTube and upload it to the site. As for the videos in the Reporter’s Center itself, they originally came from the accounts of the various organisations and journalists that they are linked to, making the Center more of a centralised location for this information. What’s unique, according to the initial announcement, is that this Center is not just for one-way communication, that the reporters involved will be accepting and responding to comments from the public.

It is clear, though, that YouTube, along with more traditional news organisations, have taken an interest in improving the quality of citizen journalism. YouTube wants at least to provide some guidance in producing better reporting.  How this will impact citizen journalism over the long haul remains to be seen.

 

Bottom line

YouTube is working to make itself a major destination for journalism and journalists on the web. Whether that will work, especially as many news organisations work to build their own video services, remains to be seen. YouTube’s reputation certainly works against it, but its new initiatives will likely be attractive to both professional and citizen journalists around the world.

Tags: google, network, reporter's center, you tube,

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