The findings of a Project for Excellence in Journalism study by the Pew Research Center say that YouTube is becoming a major source for eyewitness news during natural disasters and major events.

The results of the study were culminated from 15 months of examining the most popular news videos on YouTube. The researchers say that while TV news still garners the most viewings, the video site is a growing digital news platform.

Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism Deputy Director Amy Mitchell said, “There’s a new form of video journalism on this platform. It’s a form in which the relationship between news organizations and citizens is more dynamic and more multiverse than we’ve seen in most other platforms before,” the Associated Press reports.

“One of the things that emerges here is the power of bearing witness as a part of a news consumption process. Many of the most viewed stories that we’re looking at here have real powerful imagery around them,” Mitchell said. And it’s that kind of imagery that creates the feel of authenticity.

Cleveland.com says the study shows YouTube as “global news arena where professional and amateur video bleed together, and is made consumable in on-demand style.”

Tech News Brought To You By OptimizationTutor.com

One must be careful when using YT as a source. Just because it has become a popular place to get one's news, videos can be edited before posting. A fight in the street has a beginning and an end. If the poster hates someone or something, it is possible they might leave out the important parts that allow the viewer to decide if the fight was justified or not.

Consider something as innocuous as an iPhone drop test videos. We the people do not know how many trial drops were attempted; the screen might have broken after twenty drops. If the poster hates iPhones, he/she will not show every attempt.