futurejournalismproject: The Hidden Cost of...

futurejournalismproject:

The Hidden Cost of Hamburgers

Two things here: this animation is part of the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Food for 9 Billion series, a yearlong look at the challenge of feeding the world.

It’s also now part of The I Files, a new investigative channel on YouTube that will be curated by the CIR and draw from sources around the world.

Via CIR:

Edited by the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, Calif., The I Files will be a showcase for the best investigative news videos from around the world – stories that investigate power, reveal secrets and illuminate your world. Our motto: Dig deep.

Our contributors include major media players such as The New York Times, BBC, ABC and Al-Jazeera, as well as public television’s ITVS and a host of independent reporters and producers. We will be working in association with the Investigative News Network and its coalition of 60 nonprofit news organizations, from ProPublica to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University.

This is, of course, an experiment, yet another new venture in a media environment where the Web has splintered audiences into thousands of niche markets. But there is a method to our madness.

YouTube, just seven years old, is a vast and rapidly changing media environment, and within the almost incomprehensibly large YouTube universe, news videos have begun to find an audience amid the entertainment and clutter. It’s news that is often raw and citizen-generated – like footage of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami – but increasingly, it’s also professional news from established broadcasters.

A new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism confirms the trend of people turning to YouTube as a source of news and information, especially in times of disaster – whether natural (a volcanic eruption in Iceland) or unnatural (the recent mass shooting in Aurora, Colo.). TV is still, by far, the No. 1 source of news for most Americans, but the Pew report found that YouTube has established itself as a rapidly expanding platform for “a new form of video journalism … where professional journalism mingles with citizen content.”

Stephen Talbot, CIR, The I Files brings investigative news to YouTube.