It’s clear that YouTube is and will remain one of the top landscapes for breaking news, citizen journalism, and in-depth reporting that may have never found its way to the public through more traditional media outlets. All you have to do is think about the Arab Spring, user-submitted police videos, and undercover exposés on topics like animal cruelty to confirm this.

In order to promote their position as one of the new frontiers for journalism, YouTube has just announced the launch of The I Files, a new channel that curates some of the best investigative reporting on the web.

The content will be curated by the Center for Investigative Reporting, and the channel has received funding from the Knight Foundation.

Here’s what YouTube had to say about The I Files in a blog post:

In this age of abundant content and short attention spans, thoughtful analysis and rigorous reporting is more important than ever before. That’s why we’re so pleased that investigative reporting now has a new home on YouTube—The I Files. Curated by the Center for Investigative Reporting with funding from the Knight Foundation, The I Files will be a hub and community for investigative journalism on the web, showcasing reporting that digs deep into stories, gives background to complex issues, and reveals details that help us make better sense of our world.

Contributors at the launch of The I Files Include The New York Times, the BBC, NPR, ABC News, and Al Jazeera. Hopefully, the new channel will make sure that great investigative stories don’t get lost in the 72 hours worth of content uploaded to YouTube every minute.