MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF: Google is launching a sort of marketplace for so-called “citizen” journalists and media outlets. It’s new initiative, YouTube Direct, “allows media organizations to request, review and rebroadcast YouTube clips directly from YouTube users,” according to Google’s blog.
The application allows participating sites to put up a widget for submitting video for vetting. It gives media outlets more access to free footage, and possibly images not captured by ENG or other remote teams.
“Though we built YouTube Direct to help news organizations expand their coverage and connect directly with their audiences, the application is designed to meet any organization’s goal of leveraging video content submitted by the community,” Google said. “Businesses can use YouTube Direct to solicit promotional videos, nonprofits can use the application to call out for support videos around social campaigns and politicians can use the platform to ask for user-generated political commercials. The opportunities to use the tool are as broad as the media spectrum itself.”
Google said ABC News, NPR, WHDH/WLVI-TV, The Huffington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post had already used YouTube Direct, (though it dropped the formal article on the newspaper names, ironically illustrating a certain lack of journalistic standards).
