Regu­lar read­ers know that Socialmedia.biz cov­ers not just social media but also cit­i­zen media — and it’s all meld­ing together any­way into one giant con­ver­sa­tional media ecosys­tem, right?

So I was glad­dened to hear that Google and YouTube have taken another ten­ta­tive step for­ward into the realm of cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism with Monday’s launch of the YouTube Reporters’ Cen­ter. Above is one of the fea­tured videos: NPR’s Scott Simon on How to Tell a Story.

YouTube has done some great work in the space with its pio­neer­ing Ask the pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates a ques­tion in the CNN YouTube Debates and with its cit­i­zen­tube project cur­rently doc­u­ment­ing the tur­moil in streets of Iraq.

While the pleas of some in the news pro­fes­sion for Google to step in and “save” the U.S. news­pa­pers indus­try are down­right silly, Google and YouTube are doing the smart thing by focus­ing on the jour­nal­ism, not the under­ly­ing pub­lish­ing plat­form, and by under­scor­ing the need to uphold jour­nal­ism val­ues and stan­dards instead of throw­ing it all on the scrapheap and start­ing from scratch, as all too many blog­gers want to do.

Here’s a guest post by my friend Oliva Ma of YouTube’s News & Pol­i­tics team announc­ing the new Center:

Help­ing you report the news

Ever cap­tured a nat­ural dis­as­ter or a crime on your cell-phone cam­era? Filmed a polit­i­cal rally or protest, and then inter­viewed the par­tic­i­pants after­ward? Pro­duced a story about a local issue in your com­mu­nity? If you’ve done any of these things or aspire to, then you’re part of the enor­mous com­mu­nity of cit­i­zen reporters on YouTube — and now we’re launch­ing a new resource to help you learn more about how to report the news.

It’s called The YouTube Reporters’ Cen­ter, and it fea­tures some of the nation’s top jour­nal­ists shar­ing instruc­tional videos with tips and advice for bet­ter report­ing. Learn how to pre­pare for an inter­view from CBS News’ Katie Couric; how to be an inves­tiga­tive reporter from the leg­endary Wash­ing­ton Post jour­nal­ist Bob Wood­ward, or why it’s impor­tant for cit­i­zens to par­tic­i­pate in the news-gathering process from Ari­anna Huff­in­g­ton. And def­i­nitely don’t miss out on New York Times colum­nist Nicholas Kristof’s video on how to report from a cri­sis area with­out get­ting shot.

In addi­tion, you can also learn prac­ti­cal and eth­i­cal tips, like how to fact check your sto­ries, avoid break­ing the law while report­ing, and adhere to jour­nal­is­tic prin­ci­ples. Check out the Reporters’ Cen­ter to see all the videos or sam­ple a few in this playlist.

This isn’t meant to be a one-way con­ver­sa­tion. For the first time on YouTube, these reporters are mak­ing them­selves avail­able to engage with you directly. If you have expe­ri­ences on report­ing the news your­self and would like to share your tips, you can sub­mit them for inclu­sion in the cen­ter. Upload your “how-to” videos to youtube.com/reporterscenter and share your knowl­edge with cit­i­zen jour­nal­ists around the world.

If you’re a news orga­ni­za­tion that would to become a YouTube news part­ner, please read more infor­ma­tion on how to apply here.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing jour­nal­ists and media orga­ni­za­tions con­tribut­ing videos to the YouTube
Reporters’ Center:

Bill Adair, Edi­tor, Poli­ti­fact
Nathalie Apple­white, Asso­ciate Direc­tor, The Pulitzer Cen­ter on Cri­sis Report­ing
Donna Cas­sata, Edi­tor, Asso­ci­ated Press
Chris Cil­lizza, Polit­i­cal Reporter and Author of “The Fix” blog, The Wash­ing­ton Post
Kate Con­nolly, Reporter, Newsweek
Katie Couric, CBS Evening News
Jim Drinkard, Account­abil­ity Edi­tor, Asso­ci­ated Press
Kwame Dawes, Jour­nal­ist, The Pulitzer Cen­ter on Cri­sis Report­ing
Ari­anna Huff­in­g­ton, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, The Huff­in­g­ton Post
Michael Isikoff, Inves­tiga­tive Cor­re­spon­dent, Newsweek
Riz Khan, The Riz Khan Show, Al-Jazeera Eng­lish
Nicholas Kristof, Colum­nist, The New York Times
Andre Lam­bert­son, Jour­nal­ist, The Pulitzer Cen­ter on Cri­sis Report­ing
Dana Mil­bank, Polit­i­cal Reporter and Author of the “Wash­ing­ton Sketch” col­umn, The
Wash­ing­ton Post
Beth Mur­phy, jour­nal­ist, The Pulitzer Cen­ter on Cri­sis Report­ing
Lizzie O’Leary, Wash­ing­ton Cor­re­spon­dent for Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg
Adam Pasick, Edi­tor of Reuters.com, Reuters
Jon Resnick, Plan­ning Edi­tor, Asso­ci­ated Press
Jon Sawyer, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, The Pulitzer Cen­ter on Cri­sis Report­ing
Scott Simon, Week­end Edi­tion, NPR
Tavis Smi­ley, The Tavis Smi­ley Show, PBS
Josh Tyrang­iel, Man­ag­ing Edi­tor of Time.com, Time Mag­a­zine
Bob Wood­ward, jour­nal­ist, The Wash­ing­ton Post
Dean Wright, Global Edi­tor, Ethics, Inno­va­tion and News Stan­dards, Reuters
Randi Zucker­berg, Face­book
The Cit­i­zen Media Law Project
How­Cast
The UpTake
Witness

- End of Olivia’s dispatch -

There are now a hand­ful of cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism resources avail­able to the pub­lic, includ­ing the Cen­ter for Cit­i­zen Media’s Prin­ci­ples of Jour­nal­ism project that Dan Gill­mor and I headed up two years ago, mir­rored on the Knight Cit­i­zen News Net­work.

I’m glad to see the last five names on YouTube’s list, given that it’s cur­rently titled a bit too much toward tra­di­tional news orga­ni­za­tions when there’s a bur­geon­ing ecosys­tem of cit­i­zen media pub­li­ca­tions and place blogs that are invent­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of com­mu­nity news. But this is a great start, and in fact Olivia has invited me to take part.

Given a bit of free time, I cer­tainly will.

JD Lasica works with major com­pa­nies and non­prof­its on social media strate­gies. See his busi­ness pro­file, con­tact JD or leave a comment.

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