YouTube just became a creditable news source with its Newswire portal. The YouTube Newswire will be powered by News Corp-owned Storyful. They are the same folks that handle news for Facebook. First gaming now news. Google is really trying to help YouTube grow up beyond viral videos. I for welcome the change. There are so many fake news stories out there it can be hard to verify if the video you’re watching is real or a hoax. The videos on Newswire are all a steady feed of curated and more importantly, verified eyewitness videos. The Storyful team ensures that every video on the YouTube Newswire goes through an extensive verification process that ensures the date, location and source are correctly identified. Aside from the news. Google is also working with Eyewitness Media Hub, Reported.ly and Verification Junkie to create a site called the First Draft Coalition. The site hopes to be a focal point for journalists. It will have helpful tools and trainings for journalists.
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“Today, more than 5 million hours of news video is watched on YouTube every day, and the role of the eyewitness has never had a more vital place in the news gathering process. We live in a world where anyone can bear witness to what is happening around them and share it with a global audience, and YouTube has become a primary home for this powerful, first-person documentary footage.” ~Olivia Ma, head of strategy and operations at Google’s News Lab