Al Jazeera English teams up with YouTube for Iraqi elections coverage

Posted by Maria Conde on March 11, 2010 at 6:15 PM

Al Jazeera English - the English-language arm of the Qatari news channel - has teamed up with YouTube to cover a wide range of Iraqi voices and their opinion on their country's democracy on the day of Iraq's first nationwide parliamentary election since 2005, according to the Official YouTube blog.

The short videos give us an insight into the Iraqi voices that are rarely heard in news coverage coming from that area. One video shows one Iraqi who showed up for voting, but found out his name was not on the list. Another one shows another Iraqi complaining that not all candidates are honest.

The footage - still coming in as the votes are counted in Iraq - is available on Al Jazeera's YouTube channel as part of their elections coverage.

Laura Oliver from Journalism.co.uk explains this is a "great showcase for the power of video medium and how aggregated, short-form video can be a valuable addition to coverage of a news event."

In recent years, citizen journalism has also gained an important role in traditional news coverage. Initiatives like CNN's iReport have allowed home videos by regular people to make part of traditional news coverage. Even journalism awards seem to have recognized the growing importance of this kind of content in traditional coverage. Just this week, Global Voices, a blog that aims to connect to bloggers from developing countries, recently partnered up with BBC to give the BBC's series on the internet, a wider range of voices.

While not all content available on Iraqi voices has been filmed by regular people, this kind of content can complement traditional news packages, and also allows a wider range of voices to receive coverage.

Sources: Official YouTube blog, Journalism.co.uk