YouTube launches YouTube Newswire that will feature verified eyewitness videos of breaking news

Google has launched a service called YouTube Newswire to provide a curated feed of the most newsworthy eyewitness videos of the day.

According to the Verge, video streams on the newly-launched YouTube Newswire channel will cover stories which include footage from local newspaper and of user-generated footage. Youtube said that the service will cover both global and regional news with a Twitter feed and a daily newsletter announcing the latest and best videos.

Olivia Ma, head of strategy and operations at Google's News Lab writes in a blog post that more than 5 million hours of news video is watched on YouTube every day and the role of the eyewitness has never had a more vital place in the newsgathering process. She also writes that we live in a world where anyone can bear witness to what is happening around them and share it with a global audience and YouTube has become a primary home for this powerful, first-person documentary footage.

The company is launching the service in partnership with social news agency Storyful, whose team of journalists will work to verify footage. Storyful has worked with YouTube in the past and also for companies like Facebook and even helped to launch the social network's own news service, FB Newswire, last year. Storyful's blog shows the company's ability to identify hoax videos. YouTube believes that journalists should also be able to spot such hoaxes.

In addition, the company is also launching The First Draft Coalition, an forthcoming educational resource created by experts such as Bellingcat , a site founded by Eliot Higgins, a British citizen journalist, which will teach people how to verify eyewitness footage.

Also, the company is also starting a third venture named The WITNESS Media Lab, which will produce a series of in-depth projects that focus on human rights struggles as seen from the perspective of those who live, witness, and experience them.