The YouTube effect

In a recent Los Angeles Times column, Moises Naim says YouTube’s journalism could be a more powerful version of the CNN effect. Naim, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine, describes the YouTube effect as, “[T]he phenomenon whereby video clips, often produced by individuals acting on their own, are rapidly disseminated worldwide on websites such as YouTube and Google Video.” Naim thinks the YouTube effect will have a greater impact than CNN did after its arrival in 1980. He says, “[A]lthough international news operations employ thousands of professional journalists, they will never be as omnipresent as millions of people carrying cell phones that can record video.”