Footage includes fire and explosions. Insanity:

Imagine if the Lakers had lost. Plenty more coverage can be found here.

"Whether it’s an altercation between a Congressman and a student in Washington, D.C., violent attacks against ethnic minorities in Kyrgyzstan, or oil washing up on a beach in the Gulf Coast, videos uploaded to YouTube by both amateur reporters and professional journalists move through the media ecosystem with a sophistication and speed greater than ever before," says YouTube Head of News & Politics Steve Grove. "But with 24 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, how can people more easily find the latest breaking news videos on our site? And how can media organizations better leverage this content to expand the scope of their reporting and keep us all better informed?"

YouTube says the news feed will provide a stream of breaking news videos on YouTube, with a focus on strong visuals, non-traditional sources, and the latest uploads.

The feed will reside on CitizenTube, YouTube’s news/politics video blog. Updates will also be posted to the CitizenTube Twitter account.

YouTube is not necessarily a news source first and foremost. If it were, the top videos of all time would probably reflect that. However, YouTube is becoming an increasingly important piece of the news pie, for multiple reasons. For one, more people have video cameras in their pockets at all times (their phones) and are able to break news as it happens. Secondly, YouTube is the second largest search engine, behind Google, and people search for visuals to go with news items.

The news feed makes perfect sense as a YouTube feature, and it would not be surprising to see the feature make the leap from CitizenTube to YouTube itself sometime in the future after proper testing.

While YouTube says it’s focused more on non-traditional sources, one can envision such a feature being a go-to place for news from a variety of sources, much like Google News to articles.

We’ve reached out to YouTube for more details. We’ll update when we find out more.

Update:  Aaron Zamost from YouTube’s news division tells me, "Honestly, there’s not much more we can say beyond what we’ve written in the post, since, as you noted, this is a test. But we’re very excited to see where this takes us over the summer."

We’ll be interested to see what happens with it as well.

Would you use a YouTube news feed as a news source? Let us know.

A post on the Official Google Blog explained, "[Y]ou might have noticed that we started Citizentube as a video channel on the site a few years back, but we soon realized that keeping track of all the phenomenal uses of YouTube by posting our own videos just wasn’t fast enough – so now we’re blogging, too."

And although it looks like posts will appear at the rate of at least one per day, a Citizentube RSS feed and Twitter account are available if you don’t feel like checking the Citizentube site every so often.

Anyway, the most recent Citizentube entry is quite interesting, touching on the Iranian election and censorship conflict by showing people how to circumvent Internet proxies.  Before that, Senator Chris Dodd responded to user-submitted ideas for healthcare reform.

“DigitalJournal.com has become an incredibly powerful tool and politicians have recognized the importance of getting involved with voters in online communities," says DigitalJournal.com Editor-in-Chief, Chris Hogg.

"The influence of the mainstream media is not what it used to be. DigitalJournal.com is a unique place where citizen journalists have become a powerful force in shaping public opinion."

On DigitalJournal, presidential candidates can post news and information about their campaigns, upload photos, videos and answer questions from the public.

So far only former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has joined DigitalJournal. DigitalJournal says they are in talks with other candidates who have expressed an interest in participating on the site.

With major players launching their own political channels like MySpace’s the Impact Channel back in March and YouTube launching Citizentube and YouChoose, it could prove challenging for DigitalJournal to get more presidential candidates on board, but then again we are talking about politicians here so maybe they do have a chance after all.

In case you forgot, back when Paris Hilton launched her own special YouTube channel to promote her silly little song, purist YouTubers chimed in with their fears that the site would become too commercial.

Well, it’s too late for that now. It’s a marketer’s world these days, whether you’re selling hotel rooms or politics. But the burning debate surrounding video ads has been over whether pre-roll, mid-roll, or post roll ads were best.

Advertisers like pre-roll ads the best, but they can push the viewer to push the "Stop" button. People rightly assume viewers won’t stick around for post-roll. Mid-roll ads operate on the same premise as TV and radio ads – hook the viewer, make them wait a few seconds, and then get back to the content.

Google and YouTube know their touchy demographic, though. They won’t tolerate any in-video ads for long, if at all. This must be why they’re falling back on old standards: banners and pop-ups.

Yes, pop-ups.

If you have you’re Firefox browser tuned right, you won’t be able to see what Beet.tv’s Andy Plesser is pointing to. So use Internet Explorer or check out Plesser’s Dennis Kucinich video screen shot of the Best Western pop-up ad.

The banner ads seem more contextual. Click to view a Kucinich video and you may see a banner ad for YouTube’s latest baby, CitizenTube.

Though it seems backwards at first for such a Web 2.0 marketplace, it makes a lot of sense to do it this way. YouTubers just won’t tolerate their pure user-generated haven being interrupted constantly by in-vid advertisements.

The pop-ups may get annoying though. It will be interesting to see how the YouTube crowd responds. 

Steve Grove, YouTube’s News and Political Editor will edit the channel. The channel will aggregate political videos that currently exist on the site as well as new user generated content. They also request political video links that users think deserve more attention.

On YouTube’s blog they provide further detail on the channel. "As YouTube’s political video blog, Citizentube’s mission is to add fuel to the revolution that is YouTube politics."

"What is YouTube politics? The answer to that question is as varied as the users who jump onto the platform. But it’s one thing for certain: a place where everyone, from users to candidates, has the same chance to be seen and heard. Let the best ideas win."

So far CitizenTube has only 788 subscribers. As the political climate heats up and the 2008 election draws closer I would expect the number of subscribers to increase.

This is YouTube’s second entry into politics as they have all ready-launched YouChoose the presidential channel, which features videos from the major presidential candidates such as Barack Obama and John McCain.

 MySpace has also entered into the political arena by offering their own presidential primaries in January of 08′.

In a forum post Drew Dupont wrote," The difference between you tube media and mainstream media is that you tube has the potential of being entirely reflective of the peoples actual concerns."

"And if properly done we can avoid the political attachment some medias form based on the sponsors that support them!"

Whether CitizenTube becomes a credible place to see political videos and exchange ideas will determine its level of success.