YouTube will launch a breaking news feed this summer - the latest move by the video-sharing site to develop its news and journalism features.

The YouTube News Feed will work with the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California to track news as it breaks on the site.

"The news feed will provide a stream of breaking news videos on YouTube, with a focus on strong visuals, non-traditional sources and the very latest uploads (…) Our goal with this news feed is to learn more about the news ecosystem on YouTube," says YouTube's head of news and politics Steve Groves in a blog post.

The feed is the latest in a series of features aimed at promoting more newsworthy videos and clips on the site, including previous launches of a citizen news channel, training guides for journalists in its Reporters' Center, and reporter's channel.

The new feature is aimed at users searching for breaking news videos on the site and news organisations looking to "expand the scope of their reporting", adds Grove. The breaking news feed has been added to YouTube's news and politics blog CitizenTube, which has previously highlighted news videos uploaded to the site. Breaking news stories featured so far include an eyewitness account of bombings in Nairobi on Sunday and footage of a Japanese spacecraft returning to Earth.

The site is also asking users to alert YouTube to breaking news videos as they are uploaded with a tweet to @citizentube.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).