YouTube Takes on The News

digiday reporting:
Much like the Google News homepage, YouTube’s news channel aggregates video news content from some of the biggest – and smallest – broadcasters on earth. Also, like Google News, the channel does not actually produce its own journalism. The YouTube news channel has more than 21 million subscribers and, as of last week, a new global head of news, Tom Sly.
Most recently director of development for Google Fiber, Sly spoke with Digiday about what success looks like for YouTube News, why it doesn’t do its own journalism, and what the future holds for mobile. Excerpts:
Are you trying to be the video news source for the online generation?
The only word I’d question there is source. The reason why we’re attractive to a news publisher is because we give them a billion uniques a month. We’re a massive platform to connect your content with an audience. There are [publishers] connecting with a niche audience and delivering news to a niche audience — religious content or one political angle — and YouTube can do this in a way that cable TV would never be able to support. The economics don’t work. But we’re not producing our own content. We don’t have the expertise. We have expertise in developing the algorithm for surfacing the right story at the right time.
Will YouTube ever get into the business of producing YouTube-branded news content?
The answer is no. We’re not getting into the business of producing content or operating a newsroom inside of Google or YouTube. That’s not in our DNA.
So how does YouTube define “news” in the context of this channel?
We have names like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and Vice, brands [that] existed for years off of YouTube and finding audiences here. Then there’s folks born on YouTube like Phil Defranco, whose company was acquired by Discovery earlier this year. He connects with young people in a way that’s unique. He’s doing news in a completely different way...http://digiday.com/platforms/youtubes-take-on-news/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Digiday%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily_Sailthru_July2013