How AP is working with Bambuser to gather live video

Earlier this year the Associated Press announced a trial partnership with Bambuser, a live video platform which enables its users to live stream content to its website.

As part of the arrangement Bambuser users could indicate their permission for content to be used by the news agency its its clients, with clear credits to the users for their work.

Now that agreement has been "cemented", AP has confirmed, in a move which the news agency says will "allow AP customers to use more live news video than ever before from citizen journalists around the globe".

Associated Press, together with Bambuser, has created a "share the news" tool which Bambuser users can select if they wish to indicate that their content can be used by the news agency.

"All newsworthy video shared with AP is verified by AP’s social media specialists before being shared with a global audience," the agency added in a press release.

According to AP over the past four months, during the trial, content streamed on Bambuser "has been used by AP customers more than 4,000 times – much of it from the front lines in the Syrian conflict".

Mark Davies, deputy director of international video at AP told Journalism.co.uk the "share the news" option gives users the ability "to pre-approve the content for AP to use".

"The great thing about that is obviously with Bambuser being live content, it really speeds up the verification process, so we know instantly who's posting the material, whether they've agreed for it to be used by all AP clients and we can contact them directly to make sure it is what it says it is. So the verification process, which can be very complicated with UGC [user generated content] is greatly speeded up.

"That means we can put the content out live to our subscribers while they're still broadcasting live. So that's meant a great step forward for us."

In countries such as Syria, for example, he added that the use of Bambuser content has given the news agency "the ability to show in real-time what was happening".

As well as the live streaming of video, there is also the ability to "upload a much better quality file at the end for editing", which AP can then use to create edited packages as well.

And as well as verification, the process also helps support AP's approach to the crediting of content.

"Something that's been very important to us is to insist of correct crediting for everyone who's creating this content", he added, as well as protecting identities where security is an issue.

Hans Eriksson, executive chairman of Bambuser, added that the company is "100 per cent convinced that the route AP has taken to work with Bambuser has been and will, in the future, prove very valuable to AP, Bambuser and Bambuser users".

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