YouTube is a creator’s paradise: Experts

With the advent of technology and the boom of the internet, media is not confined to traditional mediums like TV and print, and has opened many new realms to reach out to audiences. One such platform is Google’s video platform, YouTube.

At e4m NewsNext Summit, journalists spoke about YouTube becoming a powerful platform for reaching audiences and being a great revenue generator.

The topic of the discussion was - YouTube News Channels: Vanity Projects or Impactful Journalism.

The moderator was Dr. Bhuvan Lall, Creative Entrepreneur, Author & Biographer. While the panellists included, Aditya Raj Kaul - Executive Editor, National Security and Strategic Affairs with TV9 Network; Ruchira Sharma - Senior Anchor & Consulting Editor, Network 18 - CNBC; Atir Khan, Editor-in-Chief, Awaz The Voice and Dr. / Prof. Frédéric Martel, Professor of creative economies, ZHdK University.

Sharing her views on the topic, Sharma said, “The challenges in YouTube are the same challenges that emerge in TV, it is about credibility and authenticity. YouTube could be a narcissistic, self-commercial narrative with a lot of anchors. At the same time, it could be unbiased journalism where they are touching upon a topic which haven’t been touched upon by the mainstream media. They have a wider reach. It is about impact vs influence, it’s about engagement vs bias, and it’s about authenticity and credibility vs clicks and revenue. At the end of the day, profit and content cannot go hand in hand, the revenue models have to be looked into, whether it is YouTube, whether it is mainstream media. Content cannot chase revenue, it needs to be separated.”

Building on what Sharma said, Kaul said, “YouTube is a creator’s paradise, it is something that we spoke about a decade ago, which is known as Citizen Journalism. Whether it is impactful or not, whether it is linked to the revenue or not, is what we are debating today. In my opinion, I think everything is derived from the revenue model for news channels and broadcasters. However, we have to start segregating the revenue model from the creator’s model. I understand that revenue is the final endgame for the creators and broadcasters.”

He further spoke about biases in the news business. “If somebody in the news business is telling you that we are not biased, we are unbiased, they are lying to you. The bias does come in sooner or later.”

Speaking about YouTube’s revenue, Kual said, “YouTube is a big revenue model, to get money as well as viewership because TV in the traditional form has its roadblocks. TV has a certain kind of audience, there is an age that you cater to, however, YouTube has a wider audience and an entire world. There will always be a debate about whether YouTube is a vanity project or impactful journalism.”

Khan shared his views and spoke about his journey. He said, “I have had the privilege of working in Print, TV and the digital media industry. When I see the state of journalism, I am concerned about it like others and that's why when I moved to digital platforms with Awaaz The Voice, we made a decision that we were not going to do any polarize content, we will be doing inclusive content. First two years were pretty difficult, we are now running in the fourth year. After the second year, it started looking up and e started getting more views.”

“We are going through a lot of revolution, we need to unlearn, relearn, and change our ways”, he added.

Lastly, Martel spoke about pay disparity on YouTube and said some platforms pay far better than YouTube. He also agreed, “YouTube is everything, it is impactful journalism, the vanity project, entertainment source, and serious journalism.”