Transition Team responds to Citizen's Questions on YouTube

Tom Daschle & Lauren Aronson respond to questions submitted on Change.gov, with this YouTube video.

CitizenNews Report of the Day

The New Jersey Star Ledger lets News Jerseyans create and program their very own television programming via TV Jersey. They take what citizens produce and promote it on tvjersey.com. This piece profiles Sister Jean Webster, a woman who helps serve meals to hundreds of poor and homeless residents of Atlantic City.

CitizenNews Report of the Day

After months of rains in Santa Catarina, Brazil, devastating floods have ravaged large parts of the country, killing hundreds and displacing thousands. This clip, found courtesy of Global Voices, was captured by a civilian who happened to be standing on his balcony with a video camera on hand as a powerful gush of rain water bursts over a hill, destroying the buildings in its path.

CitizenNews Report of the Day

Shawn -- a globetrotter dedicated to reducing global poverty and posting reports of his work to his YouTube channel, the Uncultured Project -- heard about a new water purifier system in Kenya that leverages nanotechnology to purify water from even the dirtiest sources. He decided to test it out himself...on water that had been contaminated by fecal matter, no less.

Watch his video to see how things turned out...

YouTube Users Respond to Crisis in the DR Congo

Since August of this year, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has seen 250,000 Congolese citizens forced to flee their homes. As the death toll and refugee counts increase, people on the frontline of efforts to help are utilizing YouTube to speak out against the violence.

Nonprofit organizations are using the site to raise awareness about the conflict and to raise funds that are desperately needed to provide food, medicine and sanitation for the refugees. UNICEF uses video to explore a day on the ground at one of the refugee camps in DR Congo, while Doctors Without Borders depicts the struggles of the displaced through a powerful slideshow. And if you'd like to contribute more than just your viewership, the Disasters Emergency Committee recently posted an appeal on behalf of the UK's 13 leading charities for YouTube users to donate funds:



Individual YouTube users have also been raising their voices to demand that more be done to end the fighting. This UK citizen asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown why he recently spent more time talking about British celebrities than the dire situation in DR Congo.

You can join this important conversation -- if you have thoughts about the humanitarian crisis, please add them in the comments or detail them in a video.

CitizenNews Report of the Day

A journalist captured footage of a dozen Greenpeace activists being bullied and attacked while protesting at a coal mine in Western Poland.

The 2008 Election on YouTube: A mash-up

We premiered this mash-up at YouTube LIVE! on Saturday night in San Francisco - it chronicles the 2008 Election as it unfolded on YouTube. James Kotecki, aka Emergency Cheese, was kind enough to come to San Francisco and introduce the piece for us.

President-elect Obama announces stimulus planning on YouTube; now using captions to reach global audience

This week's video address from the President-elect announced an economic stimulus plan he plans to set in motion soon after inauguration. After a brutal week on Wall Street, Obama is taking action to boost consumer confidence before he even takes office; he claims the plain will bring 2.5 million jobs.

The Obama team is now using YouTube's caption functionality, so that people around the world can translate his weekly address into their language. The captions also allow seniors or those with weak eyesite to read clearly what the President-elect is saying in his videos.

CitizenNews Report: Gay Marriage in Nepal

A Nepalese blogger from Instablogs, a global network of citizen journalists, reports the Nepali Supreme Court has upheld the right to gay marriage. They point out that "gays from South Asia once used to seek asylum in the United States," but that given the recent passing of Prop 8, banning gay marriage in California, "Californians may now be heading to Nepal to get married in the shadow of the Himalayas."

CitizenNews Report of the Day

Purple States, a news organization that helps elevate high-quality citizen reporting and user-generated news content, has launched a new series called 50 bloggers, 50 states, and 50 days. Every day, they post a new video from a blogger talking about how the financial crisis has affected him or her and the local economy in that state.

Check out Marcio DaSilva, an immigrant from Brazil, video blogging about tough economic times in Georgia:

President-Elect Obama and Rep. Ed Markey Discuss Climate Change on YouTube

The Presidential Transition Team is ramping up their YouTube presence on their YouTube channel, Changedotgov. Yesterday, President-Elect Obama delivered an unexpected speech via video to the bi-partisan Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles, outlining his stance on the need for aggressive climate change and international cooperation in fighting global warming.



Representative Ed Markey, who chairs the US House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, posted a video of himself watching the video on YouTube and offering his response.

SF Mayor takes unique approach to a "talking head" video

Just came across this from SF Mayor Gavin Newsom's channel. Whatever your view point on Proposition 8 in California, it's worth taking a look at this piece - it's very well done. By filming him as he prepares for and delivers a TV interview on the topic, the Mayor's video team makes Newsom seem more human, more personally affected by the issue. The style also does a good job of casting him as a fighter for this cause, someone who is out in front of the media campaigning on the issue. Worth a look.