YouTube launches investigative video news channel ‘I Files’

by Lesley Lanir (Guest contributor/Digital Journalist)

YouTube has launched their investigative news channel ‘I Files’ a project formed with The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). YouTube states ‘I Files’ will choose and broadcast the best investigative videos from around the world.

According to TechCrunch, YouTube is beginning to take their slice in the news reporting pie more seriously and has collaborated with the nonprofit investigative reporting organization The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and set up a news channel named “‘I Files’“.

YouTube announced that the main contributors will include The New York Times, ABC, BBC, Al-Jazeera and the Investigative News Network.

In light of a recent study by PEJ on YouTube and news, which investigates the rise in news viewing on YouTube and the growing number of citizen journalists present, Digital Journal published a news report on Youtube’s growing popularity as a place to watch news. The author also contacted Amy Mitchell, Deputy Director of Pew Research Center’s PEJ to ask why she thought people were turning to YouTube for news videos.

Mitchell replied:

The YouTube platform offers a new form of video journalism. Individuals can bear witness to events in a new and powerful way. As with other social and web-based media it also allows people to watch these moments on their own agenda, and to share them with others.

Check out the I Files Facebook page. For more information about CIR read Reinventing Journalism by Robert J. Rosenthal, Executive Director.

This article originally appeared on Digital Journal [Link]