As featured in the NYTimes, YouTube is experimenting with a local news filter at: http://www.youtube.com/news. Viewers are able to pull local news-feeds down to a specific zip code. While much of the news-feeds are in-fact professionally produced content, many are not. Pro-sumer feeds often make up in value what they lack in content and I was surprised at how much I learned from/about my own neighborhood.
Short term, this is an experiment. Long term this could easily trump local news affiliates given at how nimble this could become. Success rests on the quality, reliability and relevancy of local news sources which of course will be up to local reporting – professional and pro-sumer alike. Either way, local news affiliates from the major networks will be given a run for their money once this matures.
Jared Hendler 