The interesting video below, from Beet.tv, features an interview with Olivia Ma, manager of news at YouTube, who talks about the site’s role as a platform for raw video of newsworthy events, such as the Middle East uprisings, both to the general public and news organisations.
YouTube doesn’t actually do any vetting of this material, we simply provide a distribution platform for people to get the word out and to upload their videos so the world can see them … Everyone can be a reporter, everyone has the power to bear witness to the events that are happening around them and document that and share it with the world.