A new home for investigative journalism on YouTube

Some of the biggest news stories of recent times have played out on YouTube—we’ve been transfixed by citizen-uploaded footage coming out of the Middle East, gained unique perspectives on natural disasters thanks to on-the-spot reporting and security cameras, and seen citizens document elections via video to ensure fair process. This growing volume of news-related video has contributed to the now 72 hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute.

In this age of abundant content and short attention spans, thoughtful analysis and rigorous reporting is more important than ever before. That’s why we’re so pleased that investigative reporting now has a new home on YouTube—The I Files. Curated by the Center for Investigative Reporting with funding from the Knight Foundation, The I Files will be a hub and community for investigative journalism on the web, showcasing reporting that digs deep into stories, gives background to complex issues, and reveals details that help us make better sense of our world.



Contributors to The I Files include such luminary media outlets as The New York Times, BBC, ABC News and Al Jazeera, and organizations like the Investigative News Network and their member non-profit news organizations like the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, and the Investigative Workshop at American University.

Subscribe to youtube.com/ifiles to get the best of online investigative journalism delivered to you as it happens.

David Gehring, News Content Partnerships Manager, recently watched “The hidden cost of hamburgers.”

Your questions on the future of Iraq

There is perhaps no other country in the world that has undergone more change or been under more scrutiny in the past decade than Iraq. The draw-down of U.S. troops and a recent election that has yet to produce a formal government have left Iraq in a state of flux. The country’s destiny has implications not just for the Arab world, but for the world at large.

That’s why, in partnership with the Arabic-language television network, Al Arabiya, we’re launching “Iraq Looks Forward,” a series of interviews on YouTube in which Iraqi leaders answer your questions about the future of the country. This is your chance to engage directly with top Iraqi officials, so visit youtube.com/alarabiya to submit your questions and vote on which you think should be asked.





A selection of the top-voted questions will be posted to sitting Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Barham Salih, and others.

The deadline for submitting questions is Monday, September 27.

Olivia Ma, News Manager, recently watched “Tony Blair on Iraq and Iran - The View”

Update: Former sitting Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has also confirmed his participation in this interview series.

Share your reflections on Hurricane Katrina, five years later

Five years ago, on August 29, Hurricane Katrina began battering the Gulf Coast region, destroying homes, schools and businesses, and submerging the city of New Orleans under water. The deadly hurricane claimed over a thousand lives, left hundreds of thousands without homes, and caused tens of billions of dollars worth of damage, amounting to one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the United States. Despite these challenges, the resilient spirit of the Big Easy has helped the city and its residents rebound and rebuild.

In 9 days we will commemorate the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with a collection of videos on the YouTube homepage created by New Orleans area residents. In partnership with ABC 26 (WGNO), a local television station in New Orleans, we invite Gulf Coast region residents to reflect on the five years since Katrina and submit videos using YouTube Direct on ABC 26’s website. A selection of videos will also be featured on abc26.com, ABC 26’s YouTube channel, and broadcast on ABC 26.

Did you live through Hurricane Katrina and have a story to share? Upload your video here: http://www.abc26.com/community/rememberingkatrina

Olivia Ma, News Manager, recently watched “Vaccarella Family - Hurricane Katrina”

You Report: What’s happening now in the Bay Area?

Though YouTube is a global site, it’s often local videos that are most relevant to your life. When people use camcorders and mobile phones to capture newsworthy events in their neighborhoods and upload them to YouTube, they’re broadening the window into our own communities. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area (where YouTube is based), we’ve seen several YouTube videos inform local news coverage, from the snapping of support cables on the Bay Bridge, to the shooting of Oscar Grant by an Oakland police officer, to fights breaking out on Muni, the local bus system.

Earlier this summer, we announced our CitizenTube News Feed, the first of two projects we're doing with the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Now, we’re participating in an experiment in citizen reporting right here in our own backyard. We’re joining forces with our local ABC station, ABC7 (KGO-TV), to launch the ABC7 uReport powered by YouTube. ABC7 will use YouTube Direct to collect news footage from people in the San Francisco Bay Area. Residents of the Bay Area are invited to document the news and events happening where they live, work and play, and to submit those videos via YouTube Direct to the producers at ABC7. The team at ABC7 will feature newsworthy videos on television (Channel 7 in the Bay Area), on their website (ureport.abc7news.com), and on their YouTube channel (youtube.com/abc7news).

Do you have a video camera and live in the Bay Area? You can participate in the project by submitting your news videos to ureport.abc7news.com, and be sure to follow along on Twitter (@abc7newsbayarea) and on Facebook (facebook.com/abc7news) for the latest news and updates.

Olivia Ma, News Manager, recently watched “Dancing at Sunday Streets Mission.”

Art Imitates Life: Re-enacting Prop 8 Trial on YouTube

In its January 13, 2010, ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the public broadcast of the proceedings in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, a U.S. District Court case challenging the constitutional validity of California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. Not to be deterred, producers John Ainsworth and John Ireland from MarriageTrial.com took verbatim court transcripts and first-hand accounts from bloggers present at the trial to film complete re-enactments of the proceedings for their YouTube channel. With closing arguments slated for June 16, we caught up with the producers to learn more about the project.

What is the inspiration behind MarriageTrial on YouTube?

We realized on January 13, when the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the broadcast of California’s Proposition 8 trial, that this was really significant. When the American public was actively prevented from accessing these public proceedings on YouTube — precisely because it is so accessible — well, that’s a flat-out dare. We had to fill the void. We both believe that citizens should have access to the judicial process that will likely determine the future of marriage equality for our entire country.

First video in the series:

How has YouTube helped meet the goals of your project?

There is really no better venue for 60+ hours of film. Many blogs and news media websites have embedded our videos. Because of this, our coverage has become an integral part of the media’s reporting on the trial. Ultimately, this serves our primary goal, which is to bring transparency to the court process.

We have followed behind the scenes of the trial, as well. When the Defendant-Intervenors filed Motions to Strike testimony, we were able to “red-line” the proposed strikes, guiding people to the excerpts the motion sought to exclude from the official record. In fact, our re-enactment will remain accessible, regardless of what may be redacted from the official transcript. That is an extraordinary victory for transparency in our judicial process.

YouTube’s “time seek” functionality allows us to link evidence that is introduced in the trial. Most of our viewers are active consumers of the information, many of them reading along with the transcripts and searching for further references to each witness’s testimony. Yet many others just run the videos in the background. One of our subscribers, who cranks up her speakers and cleans the house, told us she considers our channel better than the books on tape.

Has the amount of attention been a surprise?

We were astonished at the press coverage we received, from local and national media. The international press, too, took a great interest in our project. The fact that they could access our video on YouTube made it very easy to cover and most TV and radio outlets broadcast clips directly from our YouTube channel. In a way, our YouTube Channel served as an Electronic Press Kit (EPK), which saved us quite a bit of time and marketing money.

We were featured in the New York Times, then on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. Other national and international coverage followed. These reports commented on the way we were getting this video out to the masses…that our effort signifies a new type of “citizen journalism,” not only accessible to the world, but faster and cheaper to produce than traditional forms of media broadcast.

Describe the use of captions in your videos.

A few hours after we uploaded our first chapters, automatic captions miraculously appeared! We then formatted the official court transcripts and used YouTube’s auto-alignment tool to produce accurate captions. Our actors followed the transcripts word-for-word and the captions make it clear what a great job they did. It was so easy to provide captions, which, traditionally, can be very expensive (often prohibitively) for filmmakers. The new Interactive Transcript feature is a great way for users quickly jump to specific parts of the video directly from the transcript.

Comprehension and retention of the concepts introduced by witnesses, for example, get a major boost when viewers can read along, without having to pull up the PDF transcript. And of course, the trial re-enactment is immediately available to people with hearing loss, as well as people whose native languages are not English. The auto-translate function makes these captions available in so many languages. We could never have even approached this level of accessibility as independent filmmakers.

If the ruling goes into appeals, will you continue with the re-enactments?

Yes. We plan to follow Perry v. Schwarzenegger to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to most experts, this court’s ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Ninth Circuit, regardless of whether it repeals or confirms California’s Proposition 8. From there, it will inevitably be appealed to the highest court. We expect the first appeal within six months or so, then for it to go to Washington, D.C. by next fall. We are already planning for those re-enactments. It’s a bit early to cast the Supreme Court justices just yet, but we know that is in our future.

Bottom line, this case as a landmark in America’s civil rights history. We are proud to have created this permanent record as a resource for generations to come. Its ultimate impact is tied to YouTube as an integral part in our country’s political and cultural tapestry.

Interview by Obadiah Greenberg, Strategic Partnerships, who recently watched “NASA Team Captures Haybusa Spacecraft Reentry.”

Neda Soltan and the power of human rights video

A year ago this weekend, Tehran erupted in protest at the disputed results of Iran’s tenth presidential election. In the severe government crackdown that followed, documented on cameras and uploaded by citizens to YouTube, no moment has been seen more than the death of Neda Agha Soltan, a young musician whose brutal killing by a sniper became the rallying cry for Iran’s opposition Green Movement. The anonymous videos of her death even won a prestigious George Polk award for journalism last year.

Today on the YouTube homepage, we're featuring a documentary from director Antony Thomas and HBO, entitled "For Neda". The film highlights how citizen reporting has become so important to human rights that even world leaders are paying attention to it. For example, as you’ll see in “For Neda,” President Obama talks about watching the video of Neda’s death, calling it “heartbreaking” and “unjust.”



We’re also taking this opportunity to begin a series of blog posts in partnership with WITNESS, an international human rights organization that supports people using video to document and expose human rights violations, to explore these issues.

How has video become such an important part of human rights advocacy worldwide? At its heart, human rights video is about making something visible that was not visible before. Seeing human rights abuses with our own eyes is very different than reading about the same abuses in a story or a blog post or a Tweet. In the past, we mainly saw these kinds of images in the nightly news or in documentaries -- and even then only occasionally. But now that camera usage and access to the Internet is much more widespread (including in many developing countries), we encounter human rights images much more directly. For example, Burma, Tibet and Iran are places where it’s difficult for local or international media to report, so when mass protests were met with violent force, it falls on ordinary people to try to get images out.

Human rights video is about more than capturing images of abuse as they happen, however. Direct testimony from victims or local activists can provide powerful and compelling evidence of human rights violations. Testimonies like that of "Mary," a Zimbabwean political activist who was abducted, raped and beaten in a secret torture center after the disputed 2008 presidential elections in Zimbabwe, have unique power to help us see what those who have suffered human rights abuses see, to feel what they feel, and to hear what they want to happen.

Videos alone aren’t usually enough; in order to make an impact, activists organize around the content. Sometimes organization is required simply to ensure the content finds an audience: in Iran, it was a networked web of activists who organized proxy servers and emailed footage to a diaspora outside of the country to ensure the videos got around the government's block of YouTube. Other times, coordinated campaigns ensure that citizens are called to action in courts, public squares or parliaments, as has happened in Brazil, Kenya, India or in the International Criminal Court. This isn't a phenomenon confined to developing countries or repressive regimes; it’s also happening in the U.S. Testimony as part of a campaign against elder abuse across the U.S. has helped expose stories that would otherwise go untold, and to pass legislation that improves the lives of millions of citizens. In our next post, we'll talk more specifically about what you can do to make sure videos you've uploaded or care about can have maximum impact for human rights.

As online spaces become more and more important for sharing and accessing information, we believe that access to the Internet itself is becoming a key factor in human rights in the 21st century. To make that a reality, governments, businesses, activists and citizens need to take a collective stand to ensure that video can shine a light into the darkest corners of human society, providing paths to justice to those who need it most. Both at WITNESS and at YouTube we're committed to helping build a global movement for human rights video that does just that.

Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics, YouTube, and Sameer Padania for WITNESS

YouTube launches in South Africa

Today a new territory is added to the list of YouTube locations: South Africa. This is the first domain launch on the African continent. For a closer look, head to the bottom of the page, click on the ‘Location’ tab, and select South Africa from the menu:

In practice, this means that South Africa-based channels like Freshlyground and Khayav should enjoy more profile locally, and at the same time should also find it easier to identify other local users. From now on when users in South Africa visit the localized site they will see, for example, the Most Popular and Most Viewed videos in South Africa along with local content that closely matches their interests.

In conjunction with launching our South African domain, we are teaming up with local broadcasters to ensure that YouTube users, wherever they may be, have access to some of the best locally produced content from leading local broadcasters. These include the South African Broadcasting Corporation and e.tv, who have uploaded news content including content about all the soccer fever building up in the country!

In addition, South African journalism schools, such as Rhodes Journalism School and Wits Journalism School, are also using YouTube to showcase aspiring journalists’ talent and highlight news items that are frequently under-reported:



All in all, we are pleased to be officially putting down roots in South Africa and look forward to working with South African users, partners and advertisers to make the YouTube community even bigger, even more diverse and even brighter than it is today.

Divon Lan, Product Manager, Africa, and Brian Truong, Product Manager, recently watched “YouTube Turns Five!” 

Five YouTube Reporters win $10,000 journalism grants from Project: Report

They documented college dining hall workers, teens struggling with cancer, and doctors treating the poor. Through Project: Report, a journalism contest produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, aspiring journalists from around the country had the chance to tell stories that might not otherwise be told. And after months of reporting, shooting, and editing, the five grand prize winning reporters impressed the panel of judges and the voting community, and we’re showcasing their videos on the YouTube homepage today. Each winner will receive a $10,000 grant from the Pulitzer Center to report on an under-reported story outside of the United States.

Mark Jeevaratnam chose to tell the story of a group addressing prescription drug abuse in an Appalachian coal-mining town in southeast Kentucky:



Paul Franz follows the story of Joseph Dieune, a Haitian migrant worker who sends money to his family back home:



Samantha Danis explored the challenges facing the deaf community in America:



Alex Rozier reported on an organization in Missouri trying to help the world’s immobile people:



And Elan Gepner documented how the Philadelphia Student Union is trying to combat violence through community-building efforts:



The Pulitzer Center also selected "Friends of Mago" as the winner of the Round 2 “Open Submission” Award, and the Project: Report community chose A Day in the Life -- the story of Lauren Edens -- to win the Community Award. Both receive a Sony VAIO notebook with the all new Intel Core Processor and promotion on the YouTube homepage today.

Visit the Project: Report channel (http://youtube.com/projectreport) to watch all of the submissions as well as the video blogs posted by each of the semi-finalists. We hope their work inspires you to think about ways you can use your video camera and YouTube to share important stories with the rest of the world.

Olivia Ma, YouTube News and Politics, recently watched “Doctors Uses Music Therapy With Children".

Project: Report Round 2 Begins, Semi-Finalists Announced

All of the entries for Round 1 of Project: Report are in, and a panel of judges from the Pulitzer Center have chosen the top 10 semi-finalists. We saw terrific submissions from around the country, each telling a powerful story of an individual through a day in his or her life. Now you can vote for which Round 1 submission you think should win the Community Award.

Below is a list (in no particular order) of the 10 Round 1 winners who will proceed to the second and final round of Project:Report. The grand prize? One of five $10,000 travel fellowships to work with the Pulitzer Center on an international reporting project.

• Patrick Aviles, California - Santos Camacho
• Richgail Enriquez, California - A day in the life of Lolita Kintanar
• Takayuki Ono, Illinois - Pilot volunteers his wings to help patients in financial distress
  
• Paul Franz, Florida - Dr. Pedro Jose Greer
  
• Alex Rozier, Missouri - The Story of Amanda McDaniel
  
• Felix Ramirez, New York - Mr.Zulu.mov
• Jack Ballo, New York - ELIO
  
• Samatha Ann Danis, Maine - Project Report: A Day in the Life of Alice Fogg
• Mark Jeevaratnam, North Carolina - Sharon Hill: The Smile of Commons
• Emmanuel Elan Gepner, Pennsylvania - The People's Painter

Each of these 10 semi-finalists also received a Sony VAIO notebook with the new 2010 Intel Core i7 processor and a Sony HD video camera, which they will use these to produce their videos for Round 2.

But don't worry, even if you're not one of the 10 semi-finalists there's still an opportunity to win a prize. At the end of Round 2, the Pulitzer Center will look at all of the videos submissions that came in for Round 2 and select one additional contestant to receive a Sony VAIO notebook.

If you're game, here's the assignment for Round 2:

Report on a compelling topic or subject of any nature which you believe has not been sufficiently and/or accurately covered by the national media. All entries must be less than five minutes long and shot in High Definition.

Submissions are due by 12 p.m. ET on April 4, 2010.

Congratulations to the 10 semi-finalists, and good luck to everyone in Round 2!

Olivia Ma, YouTube News & Politics, recently watched "Jersualem: War in My Land"

Iraqi Voices: Voter Perspectives on Election Day

On Sunday, despite as many as 100 bomb blasts throughout the country, according to news reports, Iraqi citizens flocked to the polls in higher-than-expected numbers to vote in the first nationwide parliamentary election since 2005. Amidst 38 confirmed casualties, Iraqi citizens from 18 different provinces inside Iraq -- as well as 16 other countries around the world -- cast their ballots to determine who will fill the Prime Minister's office and 325 seats in the nation's parliament.

What is it like to be an Iraqi citizen during this important and volatile time in the nation's history? We partnered with Al Jazeera English to find out, by collecting opinions directly from Iraqi voters on video in our "Iraqi Voices" project. The footage is still coming in as the votes are counted, but you can go to Al-Jazeera's YouTube Channel to see the playlist of content uploaded to YouTube so far. (If you'd like to put things in perspective, you can compare these clips to the ones we collected from American voters during the 2008 election in our Video Your Vote platform with PBS.)

One Iraqi got to the polls at 5 a.m. only to find out that his name was not on the list:

This video documents the actual voting experience in Iraq:

And this woman explains why she will not vote in this year's election:



If you're from Iraq or have thoughts about the Iraqi elections, upload your videos to the Al-Jazeera website (http://interactive.aljazeera.net/iraqelections) using YouTube Direct and your video might be shown on television.

Olivia Ma, News & Politics Manager, recently watched "التصويت الخاص للجيش (محمد الصالح" (with subtitles)

Five Days Left to Submit in Round 1 of Project: Report

The deadline is quickly approaching in the first round of Project: Report 2010, a journalism contest done in partnership with the Pulitzer Center for non-professional, aspiring journalists to tell stories in their community that might not otherwise be be told.

The assignment for Round 1 is to document a single day in the life of a compelling person the world should meet and showcase how that person is making a positive impact in his or her community. All videos must be three minutes or less, and the deadline for submissions is this Sunday, February 28, 2010.

Ten finalists will be chosen from the pool of Round 1 submissions by a panel of judges at the Pulitzer Center. Each finalist for Project: Report -- which is made possible by Sony and Intel -- will receive a Sony VAIO notebook with the new 2010 Intel Core i7 processor and a Sony HD video camera and proceed to the second and final round, where they will compete for five $10,000 travel fellowships to work with the Pulitzer Center on an international reporting project.

All five winners will also receive invitations to Washington, D.C., for a public screening of their work and the chance to participate in a special workshop with Pulitzer Center journalists.

You still have time to put together your Day in the Life piece if you get going today -- so find that person, tell their story, and submit your video on youtube.com/projectreport by Sunday.

We look forward to seeing your entries.

Olivia Ma, News & Politics Manager, recently watched "Arturo's Jerusalem Vlog: Episode One."

Project: Report 2010 – Sharing Your Stories With the World

Today, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, YouTube presents Project: Report 2010, a journalism contest – made possible by Sony and Intel – for non-professional, aspiring journalists to tell the stories that might not otherwise be covered by the media, and to share those stories with the world.

This year, Project: Report (www.youtube.com/projectreport) will consist of two rounds of competition held over the next three months. In each round, contestants will be given a reporting assignment to complete. After the first round, 10 finalists will be chosen by a panel of judges at the Pulitzer Center. Each finalist will receive a Sony VAIO notebook with the new 2010 Intel Core i7 processor and a Sony HD video camera and proceed to the second and final round, where they will compete for five $10,000 travel fellowships to work with the Pulitzer Center on an international reporting project.

All five winners will also receive invitations to Washington, D.C., for a public screening of their work and the chance to participate in a special workshop with Pulitzer Center journalists.

Arturo Perez, Jr., the winner of the first edition of Project: Report, traveled to Jerusalem and worked with the Pulitzer Center to produce a story on dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.

Watch the first installment of his video diary from the trip:

Do you have a story you want to tell?

Here's the assignment for Round 1 of Project: Report 2010:

Document a single day in the life of a compelling person the world should meet and showcase how that person is making a positive impact in his or her community. All videos must be three minutes or less, and submissions will be open through February 28, 2010.

Even if you do not participate in or advance past Round 1, you may still complete the assignment for Round 2, though you will not be eligible for the grand prize. YouTube and the Pulitzer Center hope to highlight and bring an audience to as many of your stories as possible.

So, without further ado, it's time to pick up that video camera, take on this assignment, and start reporting your stories to the world.

Olivia Ma, News & Politics Manager, recently watched “Project Report: What the Pulitzer Center is looking for"

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Through His Words

Dr. King, one of the United States' most beloved national heroes, led the nation through the struggles of the civil rights movement with great courage and impassioned oration. Today, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, the Washington Post is inviting people to share videos illustrating which of Dr. King's words inspired them most. We're showcasing videos on the YouTube homepage today that feature portions of his speeches -- both the familiar and the lesser-known -- as performed by users.

User baratunde recites a section of a speech delivered by Dr. King at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, condemning the Vietnam War:



Just about every schoolchild in the United States, and many around the world, has heard Martin Luther King's speeches and listened to the messages within. Do you have a favorite section or phrase that you find particularly moving, inspirational, thought-provoking or even controversial? What are you memories or impressions of Dr. King and the words he left behind?

The Washington Post is still collecting videos from its readers and the YouTube community, which they will feature on washingtonpost.com. Visit the Washington Post site to submit your own using YouTube Direct.

Olivia Ma, News and Politics Manager, recently watched "Nov. 2, 1983: Reagan Approves MLK Day."

Connecting citizens and journalists with YouTube Direct

Every day, people with video cameras are changing the ways we get our news. We see it during elections. We see it during earthquakes, fires and other natural disasters. We see it on our freeways, in our schools and in our public spaces. Almost any event that takes place today has a chance of being captured on camera. As YouTube has become a global platform for sharing the news, media organizations have been looking for a good way to connect directly with citizen reporters on our site so they can broadcast this footage and bring it to a larger audience.

That's why we created YouTube Direct, a new tool that allows media organizations to request, review and rebroadcast YouTube clips directly from YouTube users. Built from our APIs, this open source application lets media organizations enable customized versions of YouTube's upload platform on their own websites. Users can upload videos directly into this application, which also enables the hosting organization to easily review video submissions and select the best ones to broadcast on-air and on their websites. As always, these videos also live on YouTube, so users can reach their own audience while also getting broader exposure and editorial validation for the videos they create.

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. 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.

Already, we've seen ABC News, the Huffington Post, NPR, Politico, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, and WHDH-TV/WLVI-TV in Boston using YouTube Direct. We look forward to seeing many more organizations to do the same.

To get started, visit youtube.com/direct.

Steve Grove, YouTube News and Politics, recently watched "The WonderScope Challenge"