Anyone can be a journalist or news reporter these days, all
they require is an internet connection. Through an article posted on mashable we are currently finding that when it
comes to the political crisis in the Ukraine, social media is providing immense
amounts of information. Twitter has provided the world with images of the
crisis, but YouTube has provided more than 90,000 videos in relation to the
crisis.
These videos have been uploaded since Feb. 1, and they
represent 82% more videos than were shared to the service over the previous two
months. They also give a look at the mayhem in the streets with unfiltered
eyes. More than 200,000 people watched Espreso TV’s live coverage of protests
in Ukraine’s capital city of Kiev. Furthermore, the YouTube videos and live
streams have reached more than 25 million views between them.
Tom Sly, YouTube’s global head of news partnerships said in
a statement, “YouTube is critical to giving people access to immediate and
unfiltered information about what's happening on the ground from multiple
perspectives…Eyewitness reporters, traditional broadcasters and new
made-for-digital news organizations are playing a big role in moments such as
the protests in the Ukraine and Venezuela to enable information to reach more
corners of the world via YouTube."
I think that the people involved in the crisis or those that
have access to information about it, including video should unquestionably
share it with the world on any medium they have. News coverage is a business be
it print or video, and as such they often have slants and don’t provide proper
coverage or filter the information before it reaches the general public. When
individuals share their findings there is less chance for bias or slant
especially if it is just a live stream of chaos.
