YouTube understands the concept of a media ecosystem. One might say it embodies it. When the video-sharing entity announced a new and free tool – one that allows news organisations to highlight newsworthy viwdeo footage from ‘citizen journalists’ on their websites – online news sites the Huffington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post were among the first US outlets to sign on. ‘YouTube Direct’ allows any media organisation to request, review and rebroadcast YouTube clips directly from YouTube users. The head of news and politics at YouTube, Steve Grove, said on a post that the tool was not only aimed at connecting citizen journalists with traditional news outlets but could also be used, for example, by businesses wishing to highlight promotional videos.

The potential for amateurs to influence public discourse and mainstream media coverage of events may date back to Matt Drudge's intervention in the Clinton regime, but it is only recently that the phenomenon has taken a quantum leap with the proliferation of blogs in the 21st century. While the Bill and Monica story would no doubt have surfaced anyway, the scoop became a point of definition in American journalism, says UK journalist and media studies academic Ian Hargreaves, when it ‘precipitated a scramble for angles on the same story by established newspaper and TV reporters, in which corners were cut, mistakes made, and rumour was paraded as fact.