A Pew Research study confirms that YouTube has become a major platform for watching news, which for the mainstream news industry poses “a significant opportunity and also a challenge.”

News producers can use the site to grow their audience, find citizen-created videos, build their brand and generate revenue. At the same time, video-sharing sites are yet another platform they must understand — and to which they must adapt.

Key findings of Pew’s study:

* The most popular news videos tended to depict natural disasters or political upheaval-usually featuring intense visuals.
* News events are inherently more ephemeral than other kinds of information, but at any given moment news can outpace even the biggest entertainment videos.
* Citizens play a substantial role in supplying and producing footage.
* Citizens are also responsible for posting a good deal of the videos originally produced by news outlets.
* The most popular news videos are a mix of edited and raw footage.

The report points out that viewership for TV news still easily outpaces those consuming news on YouTube — 22 million people on average still watch the evening news — but fast-growing YouTube is now the third most visited destination online, behind only Google and Facebook.

* YouTube is an important source of video news, says report (Washington Post)
* YouTube & News: A Pew Research study (Journalism.org)

* Romney and Obama camps insist on approving quotes. “It’s not something I’m particularly proud of,” says The National Journal’s Major Garrett, “because there’s a part of me that says, ‘Don’t do it, don’t agree to their terms. There are times when this feels like I’m dealing with some of my editors. It’s like, ‘You just changed this because you could!’” (New York Times)
* Sunday memorial celebration for AP intern Armando Montano “was by turns tearful and full of laughter.” (Associated Press)
* On Sunday night, MSNBC.com became NBCNews.com, signaling the end of a long NBC and Microsoft online relationship. (New York Times)
* Duluth paper’s correction says nudity in local “Hair” production *does not* last as long as 3 minutes as the paper reported. (Charles Apple)
* Oregonian editorial cartoonist takes partial credit for Nike taking Paterno name off child care center. (Washington Post)
* Study finds that funny TV ads don’t sell any better than unfunny ones. (AdAge.com)
* Score one for Drudge after he turns the entire press corps upside down with an off-the-record source. (Daily Beast)
* Sun-Times turns off comments on story about Obama staffer who collapsed and died; some were “absolutely sickening.” (@suntimes)