ABC O&O KGO-TV San Francisco isn’t getting rid of its own camera crews, but it is tapping into a vast resource of camera-equipped citizens. The station has teamed up with YouTube to collect videos and photos from throughout the market.
“This is the first time that YouTube teamed up with a local television station,” said YouTube News Manager Olivia Ma as she announced the launch of the ABC7 uReport powered by YouTube.
People in the Bay Area are being invited to either email their videos/photos to KGO or upload them at uReport.abc7news.com. Newsworthy submissions will be featured on air, on the abc7news.com website and on the station’s YouTube channel.
In announcing the joint project with YouTube, KGO noted that the video sharing site was already known for being the site of important news videos from local people, including the snapping of support cables on the Bay Bridge, the fatal shooting of a man by an Oakland police officer and fights on the local bus system.
RBR-TVBR observation: Not a completely new idea, since lots of stations have been soliciting viewer news videos for some time now. But getting YouTube as a partner is new. There’s nobody bigger when it comes to aggregating videos from the public.
