Just one year after becoming president of the AFP, 43 year-old Pierre Louette is satisfied with these results. Louette also praised the peaceful social atmosphere within the AFP, where there weren’t any strikes.

Louette’s overall strategy is to transform the AFP, from an international news producer, into a specialized distributor of “refined” news, on all media platforms.

“We must add analysis capacities, and provide keys to citizens for a better understanding of the world,” he said.

Louette also plans to develop the AFP’s multimedia ventures, which have traditionally lagged behind that of Anglo-Saxon agencies.

With the help of the new international news channel France 24, “news corners” should be implemented around the world, which will allow AFP journalists to produce daily televised reports.

The AFP also has projects to expand its Video Forum service. For its online services, it will launch an Arab-language multimedia magazine, as well as a televised news report and a sports news report. Mobile services will also be subject to growth.

Thanks to these policies, Louette hopes to double video profits in 2007, up to €3 million. AFP’s most important innovation would be to launch a website that could host both professional and citizen blogs, to provide a multimedia database of information.

An unprecedented enterprise, which risks putting the AFP in conflict with its very own clients, but could also help it transition into an era of participatory journalism. The English-language site would only be test-launched in the US and Asia though.

Source: Le Monde (link in French)