Watch out, Snapchat; YouTube is giving us newsworthy video now.
This YouTube Update Will Change the Way You Watch the News
Recommended for you
When you think real-time, eyewitness videos, you probably think of Snapchat or Twitter’s Periscope, not Youtube. But now it seems that YouTube is finally jumping on the first-person-narrative wagon and putting out a curated feed of firsthand-account news stories. Say hello to YouTube Newswire, a daily feed of YouTube’s most newsworthy videos, all provided by users like you.
YouTube has taken preventive measures to make sure you’re not watching hoax videos. They’ve partnered with Storyful, a company that does all the fact-checking on social media to ensure that the first-hand news you’re watching is actually worth watching. Together, YouTube and Storyful will provide viewers with a curated (and accurate) feed of the day’s most newsworthy events that are being uploaded to YouTube.
Olivia Ma, the Head of Strategy and Operations at the News Lab at Google, wrote in a blog post that Newswire will provide journalists with a valuable resource. Now they will be able to find videos of major events, alongside global and local footage showcasing the most relevant news all over the world. It will be available online, on Twitter and as an email newsletter.
“The noise and the need for curation have never been greater — and neither has our team’s commitment to creating the best social journalism,” Storyful states. According to Storyful, almost 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. That’s A LOT of video to sift through and verify. Of course, verification is crucial in today’s world of real-time reporting, when a news story can break all over social media platforms without every being fact-checked.
Before YouTube, you needed a team of reporters, journalists and a whole TV network to capture and distribute images for a groundbreaking story. YouTube Newswire could mean a huge leap for journalism as it creates a unique relationship between eyewitnesses and journalists, creating an authentic story for viewers like us.
Would you get your news from YouTube? Let us know what you think of this news source in the comments below!
(h/t Tech Crunch)
