SAN FRANCISCO » YouTube has started a video news service to showcase the most interesting clips recorded and posted by eyewitnesses at events unfolding around the world.

The service, called "YouTube Newswire," is being compiled by Storyful, an Internet service owned by News Corp. that also recently started to package interesting stories posted on social networking leader Facebook.

YouTube is trying to make it easier to find the most compelling news clips amid the 300 hours of video posted on its site each minute. It says its visitors watch more than 5 million hours of news video each day.

Google Inc., YouTube’s owner, has been using an automated formula to highlight the top news stories in a section of its Internet search engine since 2002.