YouTube is proving its worth to media organizations through a new tool that will make it easier for video user-generated content (UGC) to be submitted and aggregated for online news sources.

Citizen journalism is quickly becoming a must have for many news sources and YouTube Direct is the latest tool to help news organizations expand their coverage and connect with their audiences. Providing a community format for reporting the news has already made headlines throughout such global events as the Obama election and in Iran this past year.

YouTube Direct allows media organizations to request, review and rebroadcast YouTube clips directly from YouTube users. The open source application allows for each organization to enable customized versions of YouTube’s upload platform on their own site. The company then hosting the application can easily moderate each video submission and select the best ones to air on their own website.

Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube said that YouTube Direct would allow “news organizations to control their experience with users while tapping into the community where that activity is taking place, which is YouTube.”

Aside from media organizations the application can easily work for businesses including the ability to solicit promotional video, non-profits could request cause-driven videos for social campaigns and politicians could use the platform to ask for UGC political commercials.

YouTube Direct has already signed up with ABC News, The Huffington Post, NPR, Politico, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post and WHDH-TV and WLVI-TV, two television stations in Boston.