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This week, a tax break for newspapers in Washington state went into effect, giving print publications a 40 percent reduction in the state business tax. One lawmaker stressed the tax cut was "not a bailout." It is interesting to note Washington already offered equal exemptions to the aerospace and timber industries, both of which are critical to the state's economy.

In a year which saw the Seattle Post-Intelligencer make the move to online-only and the Seattle Times cut 500 staff members, many publications will welcome any relief they can get. However, others wonder whether the measure will be enough to revive struggling papers and what such aid means for the publications' journalistic independence.

Citizen photojournalism agency Citizenside has partnered with French free daily 20minutes to launch a citizen journalism portal on the paper's website 20minutes.fr. In the area "la une des lecteurs" (the readers front page) there is a new section called "vos images" (your images) where readers can upload their photos and see them sorted and published.

Hélène Fromen, new media editor at 20Minutes said in a press release that "putting this contributative platform in place "confirms 20minutes.fr's capacity for innovation." She added that "with this service, we are deploying a true participative ecosystem around 20minutes.fr that treats our Internet readers as a potential new source of verified information and gives value to their contributions."

Following the Iranian election on 12 June, which both sides claim to have won, Iranians and the rest of the world wants to know the truth about the results, as well as wanting to follow protests and other developments. But this has proved more difficult than anticipated given the restrictions on reporting, both by Iranians and foreigners, and the occasion proved to be an opportunity for citizen journalism to show its value.

Reporting restrictions

Mainstream media has been suffering from severe restrictions in Iran, even tougher than during last year's Zimbabwean elections, foreign editor for Channel 4 News Ben de Pear told the Guardian. Foreign journalists first had to get special press cards and were closely monitored, then on the Tuesday following the election, foreign journalists were banned from reporting on the streets. The BBC's correspondent has been asked to leave the country after the broadcaster was accused of supporting rioters. And it is not just foreign reporters who are suffering: now even reporters of Iranian nationality are being confined to their offices. According to Reporters without Borders (RSF), 26 Iranian journalists, editors and bloggers have been imprisoned since June 14.

Citizen video becomes a symbol

In the absence of an abundance of professional reporters, amateurs have stepped up. One of the most watched and discussed videos to come out of the tragedy, and one which is emblamatic of the role of citizen journalism in reporting from Iran, is that of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a young Iranian woman who was walking near the scene of clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators when she was shot. The video has prompted international outcry and the girl's death has since come to represent the tragedy of the conflict, a "symbol of the anti-government movement," according to the New York Times. It was taken, not by a reporter with a camera, but by a bystander on a mobile phone, and posted on Facebook and YouTube after the man sent the 40-second clip to a friend who then forwarded to friends and news sites in Europe and the US.

A Twitter revolution?

Talk of a Twitter revolution swiftly spread as Iranians and others in the country used the social network Twitter to get their news out to the world, and it has been used extensively by the media. Twitter is particularly effective as a method of spreading news as it is harder to censor, given that it can be accessed via various different applications on computers or mobile phones, as well as via the website. #IranElection has been the top trending topic on Twitter for days, with thousands of updates an hour using the hash tag to get included in the feed and direct interested observers to text, image or video content. Following a request from US President Obama, Twitter decided to delay maintenance to the site in light of the important role it was playing in keeping people informed, carrying it out during Tehran's night rather than daylight hours.

Twitter is clearly not immune to censorship, however. The following message has been passed around Facebook over the last few days amongst Anglo-Saxon users:

"FREEDOM OF SPEECH: If anyone is on twitter, set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians' access to the internet down. Cut & paste & pass it on."

Amateur issues

Clearly, there are problems with relying on information generated by amateurs. Benoit Hervieu of RSF told Editor & Publisher that one of the main problems is that because many people want to remain anonymous, it is harder to verify information. And indeed, it seems that much false information has been circulating. After Twitter was hailed as the voice of the revolution, a backlash quickly emerged asserting its unreliability. There is always the possibility, after all, that interested parties might deliberately try to misinform, or might be so personally involved in the debate that they cannot maintain impartiality. And one of the disadvantages of a campaign such as that mentioned above, encouraging international Twitter users to set their locations to Iran, could end up misleading journalists searching for information on the network.

So how are citizen journalism agencies dealing with these risks and challenges?

Checking for reliability is a top priority for those trying to sell their content to traditional media companies. Citizen journalism agency Demotix has obtained many images from freelancers and amateurs portraying events in Iran, including two pictures which have appeared on the front page of the New York Times. Demotix COO Jonathan Tepper emphasised that Demotix understands the importance of reliability of sources and "believes that serious citizen journalism needs to take all the ethics of traditional reporting and build on them, such as verifiability and protection of sources." All submissions go through a vetting procedure which includes looking at the metadata in photos.

Citizenside, which specializes in citizen photo journalism, has managed to get hold of some good images which have been published by mainstream media outlets, but co-founder Matthieu Stefani said that it has been "really hard" both to establish contacts in Iran and to receive images from these contacts. "The big issue is that most of the contributions we've received were sent through proxies, with most of the time no way to contact our contributors as cellphone networks don't work really well," he explained, and therefore his team is extremely cautious about what they accept. He said that the photos that the agency has been pushing most to its clients were received from known and trusted members in the UK who were sent them by close relatives in Iran.

The Observers, a project run by TV news station France 24 combining citizen journalism with professional editing, has been active in its coverage of Iran. Founder of the initiative Julien Pain told the EW that what makes their coverage particularly useful is the fact that they already had trusted contacts in Iran before the election, and hence they have fewer problems with establishing the reliability of sources of information, particularly when using proxy servers. "We worked with these people before the situation was tense," he explained, "so we know them." He gave the example of a girl who has recorded a video describing how the censorship works, with whom he and his team had already worked. Prior to any major election, Pain added, the Observers tries to enlarge its network of contacts, which in this case proved particularly useful. Even using trusted contacts, Pain said that the Observers still cross-checks information as far as possible.

Amra Tareen, CEO of AllVoices, a project that aggregates professional and amateur news on one site, has a different approach: publish everything and let the reader decide. She said that the site has received more than 1,000 submissions, in English and Farsi, since the election, gathered via proxy servers as the AllVoices site is blocked. She stressed that submissions have tackled both sides of the issue and that this is one of the most crucial aspects of citizen journalism and of her site in particular: that anyone can be heard. "we're neutral and anyone can have their voices heard on our platform--that's key for the credibility of citizen journalism; bias will undermine the concept and keep citizen journalism and citizen journalists from ever being taken as seriously as they ought to be."

Generally it seems that such a situation where media access is severely reduced has provided citizen journalism with a significant opportunity to prove its importance. Tareen commented that "we really want to use this opportunity to show that Cit-J is not only about massive amount of non-qualified content, but also good "pro-am" work that we have been promoting for years now," said Stefani.

Getting pictures on the front page of a major daily is likely to be a huge boost to Demotix in terms of fame and credibility. Tepper was clear that Demotix is trying to supplement mainstream media rather than replace it, but said that "we think our reporting can sometimes be more accurate than the mainstream media" because "most of our users record what is known to them, in their city or country" and therefore "Demotix images provide a more accurate representation of the subject from a local perspective."

For the Observers, the situation has provided an opportunity for collaboration with the TV station on an unprecedented level. Usually, Pain said, he would publish a video on the Observers website and offer it to TV, now he has been working more with programming at France 24 to supply them with videos first before putting them online, to offer a period of exclusivity. "We've really moved a step forward here," he said. "We have learnt how to work together, and it's not going to be the same any more."

Although amateur 'citizen journalists' do not have the knowledge or expertise to analyse developments the way a professional journalist could, they can certainly witness and record events, and when traditional media coverage is limited, this is a valuable service. In terms of providing a true news service, amateur contributions must be verified so that readers can trust them, which is a priority for citizen journalism agencies. As opportunities continue to arise for citizen journalism to prove its value, the mainstream media is likely to incorporate it with increasing frequency and develop new ways of working closer with citizen journalism agencies.

As editorial teams the across the globe seek to increase and diversify their papers' revenue streams, a wealth of diverse ideas and business models have appeared.  One of the latest to be aired comes from Laurent Joffrin, editor of the French national La Libération.   He suggests that editors of the press, publishers and website unite in the request that the leading internet servers providers (ISP or FAI's in France) Free and Orange add a few extra euros to their clients' bills.  This would serve to finance the costs of the services provided by publishers.  The fees would then be invested back into newspapers and other productions, the amount corresponding with the title's popularity and size of its newsroom.

The concept of a mutually rewarding financial model has a strong precedent in France.  The French cinema industry is financed this way, which according to Joffrin, 'has saved the industry and allowed its expansion', as reported by Challenges.fr. The editor is convinced that newspapers are an essential component in a democratic state, thus highly worthy of greater financing. 

Two New York newspapers made strong public statements last week through the publication of front-page editorials.

New York's Daily News's headlining opinion piece was a reaction to a political row in Albany, the state capital of New York, which has paralysed the State Legislature.  The editorial, unabashedly outraged in tone, called for the halting of senators' paychecks and expenses allowances for the duration of the Legislature's closure:

Pess freedom in Italy has come under international scrutiny in recent weeks as a down-grading of the press's freedom status by US non-profit Freedom House has coincided with an increase in prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's aggression towards media outlets which oppose him. Leading left-leaning daily La Repubblica has even attempted to take on the premier directly, publishing a list of questions concerning his relationship with a young girl, to which it believes he owes answers. A Dutch politician has threatened to take action in the European parliament against the Italian leader because of journalistic constraints. Should a newspaper be demanding such information which concerns a politician's private life? Is the press freedom situation as bad as it seems?

The La Repubblica crusade

On May 14 La Repubblica journalist Giuseppe D'Avanzo published ten questions directed at the prime minister concerning his involvement with 18-year-old Noemi Letizia. Berlusconi's relationship with the girl gained mass media attention when, four days after the prime minister dropped in on the girl's 18th birthday party in Naples, his wife issued a press release accusing him of "consorting with minors" and pressing for a divorce. Berlusconi promptly went on a late-night political chat show to defend himself, but the holes in his story which have gradually emerged have attracted even more attention than the original incident. D'Avanzo's questions address these holes and ask the premier to come clean about the nature of his encounters with the girl. Berlusconi has not yet answered the questions and has given no indication that he intends to. The paper has put a timer on its website to indicate the days, hours, minutes and seconds since the questions were issued, and even offers them in English.

Berlusconi himself has tried to present the left-leaning paper's campaign as a left-wing plot to undermine his authority, accusing the paper of lying and adding in an interview on TV-channel Sky that he believes many readers will abandon the paper because of this. His office issued a statement saying referring to the "campaign of denigration" and saying that the paper is driven by "jealousy and hatred."  The prime minister has fought back as the story developed, with his lawyers applying for the seizure of photos taken at his Sardinian villa (where Letizia reportedly attended parties with other young women) before they could be published, and a journalist from Berlusconi's brother's Milan-based daily Il Giornale posing as a member of the foreign press to get an interview with Ms Letizia's former boyfriend in an attempt to discredit him.
 
 
The international reaction 
La Repubblica has defended its actions, with editor Ezio Mauro saying that "There are contradictions here and when the powers that be don't explain something, journalism has a job to do." And foreign journalists seem to agree. The paper also featured an interview with Bill Emmott, former editor of the Economist, who said that "for a newspaper, asking a political leader questions is not only legitimate, but part of its mission to inform the people." According to the International Herald Tribune, "for the first time in recent memory, the Italian press is shining a bright light into the dark recesses of a politician's personal life." The Times wrote that the premier's campaign against La Repubblica "looks ominously like an attempt to cow dissent rather than protect a private reputation" and that "his newspaper critics are performing a public service for a badly governed populace." A Financial Times editorial criticised the way that Berlusconi turned on La Repubblica following the questions, and stressed that part of the "danger of Berlusconi... is that of the media sapping the serious content of politics, and replacing it with entertainment."

Berlusconi has reacted with anger and scepticism to such foreign criticism. He seems to refuse to believe that papers might be acting of their own accord, announcing that "the international press's campaign is being orchestrated by an Italian group" and referring to it as a left-wing "plot." He insists that the foreign press is misrepresenting the Italian situation, and a rift in his relationship with Rupert Murdoch seems to be further deteriorating following the Times' article and others. He has accused the Times of writing critical editorials about him because his government is in dispute with News Corp. Il Giornale, owned by the prime minister's brother Paolo, ran a story discussing the FT editorial entitled "The left has also enlisted the Financial Times."

One of a newspaper's main goals should be to act as a watchdog over the government, but it is unusual for a paper to take on a country's leader so directly, particularly over a matter which is largely private. In the UK, the Daily Telegraph's recent campaign over MPs' expenses was firmly in the public interest, as it dealt with public money being used by members of parliament for personal gain. Berlusconi has been derisive of the media discussing what he says is his private life. Should a paper be putting so much focus on an issue that is arguably unrelated to the prime minister's ability to govern the country? Is this indicative of media trivialisation?

The Times editorial does not see the questions as intrusive, as they relate to Berlusconi's "public roles as politician and media magnate". The Independent's Peter Popham said that the media "cannot be accused of muck-raking on the issue because it was Mr Berlusconi himself who drew attention to the relationship" by attending the 18-year-old's party and not only posing for photographs but publicly giving the girl a 6000euro gold necklace. And the fact that a politician might have lied to the public is probably enough of an incentive to investigate.
 
Press freedom in Italy
 
Italy has a fairly unique media situation, which makes confrontation between a newspaper and the prime minister even more pertinent. The country's press freedom status is clearly in question. A Dutch politician who is leader of the Green Left party in the European Parliament, Judith Sargentini, has said that her party is considering taking legal action against Berlusconi because of the press freedom constraints in his country. Amongst her complaints is the fact that the premier blocks critical questions at press conferences. If a majority of the European Parliament were to agree to the initiation of legal proceedings, then the matter would come before the European Court of Justice.

US-based nonprofit Freedom House recently downgraded Italy's press freedom status from 'free' to 'partly free' for 2008. In conversation with Karin Karlekar, editor of the report, she explained that the main reasons given for this were the unusually high level of media concentration, particularly in broadcasting, threats from organised crime and others, and attacks on journalists, mainly from far right groups. During Berlusconi's former term as prime minister, the country was also given partly free ratings, and Karlekar added that the media concentration was "one of the highest levels anywhere in the world."

Daria Gorodisky, a veteran Corriere della Sera journalist who is also a union representative for the paper, told the Editors Weblog that she believes there is a "truly enormous press freedom problem in Italy" which will be "extremely difficult to resolve." She does not place blame for this directly on the government but on the fact that there are no "pure" newspaper owners, rather, those who publish newspapers also run other businesses and therefore have aims and interests aside from their papers. She also believes that the quality of Italy's journalism schools have deteriorated as more and more have sprung up. She did, however, point out that this is not the first time that Berlusconi has threatened the press.

Internet penetration is low in Italy in comparison to that of its Western European neighbours: about 48%, compared to 72% in the UK or 66% in France, for example. This low figure would suggest that many people are more likely to get their news from television and one or two newspapers, rather than the range of sources that online readers might visit. Despite this, however, Karlekar noted the country's "very vibrant and influential" blogosphere, particularly politically-orientated blogs.

Gorodisky commented that although some journalists were "very worried" by the situation, she did not think that there was enough widespread concern about Italy's press freedom status. Karlekar said that her organisation's report had sparked considerable debate and she had received both praise and hate mail from Italians. Niccolo Ghedini, lawyer to Berlusconi, dismissed the report on a TV show called Anno Zero, saying it was a private organisation and took its information from only two sources, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera. Karlekar responded that she was "not sure where he got that" and was clear that "the range of sources is large and our authors would never just rely on one or two." She added that it was "interesting that the government felt compelled to respond in some way."
 
Karlekar did say that Berlusconi did not seem to be "exerting the same amount of influence over the broadcast media" as he did during his previous term as prime minister; there seems to be less "overt political manipulation." She was also clear that she did not think that the high media concentration had "stifled" the whole media, and drew attention to the diversity in terms of political opinion in the print sector.

Arguably there are far more important questions that the Italian press could be asking its country's leader, rather than focusing on the somewhat sordid details of his involvement with a teenage girl. But as a vital part of the press's role in a democracy is to play watchdog on the government, the fact that a paper is challenging the prime minister to clear up inconsistencies is something that must be welcomed. And even though the original issue may not be crucial in itself, the other questions it has brought up concerning use of government planes for private use, for example, are very pertinent. Given how much of the media the prime minister does control, and the fact that even the journalists who do not currently work for Berlusconi know that they may well some day, the press freedom situation could undoubtedly be worse than it is, and it is important that journalists keep fighting.

Despite some of the hysteria and hype emanating from global coverage of the swine flu outbreak, a Pew Research survey has found that in the US, "the level of coverage was relatively moderate when matched up against the number of confirmed U.S. cases." Comparing the top three newspapers in the US between April 27th and May 10th produced a figure of one swine flu story per 225 cases in the US, less coverage than Canada, Spain, New Zealand, France and China. In Mexico, where the disease originated, there was one story for every 81 cases.

The survey revealed that there was no direct correlation between the number of cases and the extent of coverage - China, for example had very few confirmed cases, but had front page coverage equal to that of the US, which had 2000. It also pointed out that French paper Le Figaro was simultaneously restrained and controversial in its coverage, running just two stories on its front pages, but causing controversy with its description of the disease as 'Mexican flu'.

Source: Editor & Publisher

A new court ruling in Madrid has exclusively granted intellectual property rights to newspapers, giving them total control over their own content.

The case first came to court more than two years ago when a total of 55 newspaper editors challenged a company called Documentación de Medios, for using content as part of their press-clipping service.

The future of printed media has become a major political issue in countries like the United States or France, even being debated in ad-hoc committees set up by the legislative or the executive powers. Discussions along the Potomac or the Seine rivers have been focusing on the impact of Internet and new technologies, or on the need for state subsidies.

Meanwhile, on the Vltava in Prague, a group of editors and reporters working for PPF Media, the recently created division of insurance and consumer banking group PPF, is already opening new ways of covering a whole country in what may be a newsroom of the future. With other journalists for the moment based in four provincial towns from the Czech Republic, they are launching the so-called "hyperlocal weekly" Nase adresa ("our address"), which combines print and online journalism with particular efforts to sustain high professional standards and get closer to the readers.

"It can only work with well prepared journalists who will be trained in the Futuroom, our central newsroom," explains Roman Gallo, 44, director for PPF's media strategies and conceiver of the project. "We are also opening newscafés in our local bureaus, which will facilitate the contact between Nase adresa's journalists and the public, to enrich the content of our newspaper and of its webpages," adds Matej Husek, 33, director of news operations.
 
The newspoints, combining local newsrooms and Internet cafés in often small, rural towns, may be the most visible originality of this new undertaking. A few weeks before Nase adresa's launch, for instance, PPF Media's already hired staff had the chance to taste two products, the first print prototype of the weekly, and a cake likely to be served in the cafés. "The project represents a special challenge in terms of logistics, of room for storage, as we will be managing dozens of bistrot-Starbucks-like coffee shops in local newsrooms," comments Tomas Chejn, 41, the manager of PPF Media's branded cafés, a food specialist hired for his long time experience in quality catering. Petr Vitasek, 38, the director and chief editor for the Moravia region, based in the eastern Czech city of Olomouc, thinks this effort is worth the investment, because these "well located newspoints will be critical in getting Nase adresa's journalists to work closer to their readers."
 

 
But the whole project is innovative at other, multiple levels. To start with, for the first time a newspaper's birth is tightly associated to the creation of a multi-media training center - with several international partners including Google, Atex and the World Association of Newspapers/ World Editors Forum. The Futuroom will be a newsroom in charge of assisting and training in-house editors, some having no previous reporting experience, as much as a real life teaching field for future journalists. These will include a group of students within another partnership with Brno's Masaryk University, in the second largest Czech town.

Nase adresa's approach could also become a school case due to the organization of the newsroom. "I like how the Futuroom is shaped. Journalists are not confined to one theme, like health or education, but to a way of reporting, and I enjoy changing topics," says Vendula Krizova, reporter in the "Human approach team" and young (25) like many of her new colleagues. Adds Radim Klekner, 50, who joined the "Institutional team" - after working for 10 different newsrooms - to do researches on European Union institutions in particular: "Vertical structures dominate in traditional newspapers, while in Nase adresa it is more horizontal. In my case, for instance, I will be covering many European issues based on the Czech reality."


Klekner had some doubts initially, however, because he has been covering foreign news in the past 15 years.  Why would he join a hyperlocal news project as an international editor, then? "There is a need for benchmarking with other European countries in all aspects of the Czech society, and with Nase adresa I will be able to give a EU presence in the remotest Czech villages", he believes. "Our role is to assess general issues like the lack of general practitioners in the country, compared to others, and connect them to specific cases brought up by the local newsrooms."
 

 
Local journalists with long intensive experience covering their community are also convinced they are working for an innovative project. Vitasek, in Olomouc, even tried a hyperlocal news concept on his own five years ago, called Olomoucky Tydenik. "It was a weekly published on Mondays and strong on local sports, like Nase adresa. We had to stop it after one year, but this time I have with me a 10-people team supported by PPF and by the Futuroom managers and trainers. Our office, in a central strategic area of Olomouc, will be a space for constant direct contact with readers and potential contributors."

Based on her 30 year experience in local journalism, Hana Vojtova, 52, the chief editor of the Teplice newspoint, in the north Bohemian city near the border with east Germany, also believes Nase adresa is a new improvement for community journalism: "We will get nearer to the people from the region, who are tired of politics and want to be informed on human interest stories," explains Vojtova, whose district is dramatically affected by problems like crime and unemployment. "We are going to cover better our readers's activities and their dreams!"
 

 
The project has attracted several other seasoned editors from all backgrounds, including Jiri Zavozda, 50, Nase adresa's head of the copy editing team. He just finished a seven year experience in major private television "Prima", as news editor-in-chief, after working more than a decade for national newspapers. "The TV experience was good because it teaches you how to write short, but I prefer print because it is less superficial," says Zavozda. There are other reasons why he joined the Futuroom. "I see my in-laws, who live in a little village in Moravia and who have only access to media not specifically targeted to them, national daily Mlada Fronta, newsweekly Tyden and the television. Only Nase adresa will inform them well on the Sunday afternoon firemen team's competitions, which are particularly popular in the Czech republic. We will get spectacular photos of fires being extinguished!"

Adds Peter Sabata, 48, the editor-in-chief responsible for the local newsroom: "I strongly believe in the hyperlocal level of information, with the combination of newspoints, and print, online journalism. The weekly will be a bridge from now to the near future, when everybody in the regions will be connected." Sabata just moved back to the Czech republic after eight years at the head of national Slovak paper Pravda's newsroom.

 
Other Nase adresa team members are particularly enthusiastic because of the new challenges specific to a project combining teaching and praxis, online and print journalism, so far never achieved at such a level. Ondrej Besperat, 31, who manages the photo-video team in a duo with veteran photojournalist Jan Silpoch, is well aware of the differences between shooting for a newspaper or for a website. Before joining the Futuroom, he was a photographer for national daily Hospodarske Noviny and then worked for Aktualne.cz, the successful, Internet-only Czech media outlet. "In printed media, you have to do one or two pictures a day, and you invest all your energy in the best one, while in Internet, you try more different perspectives as you know that several pictures are likely to be released for each story."

Besperat anticipates he is likely to spend two third of his time training reporters from the local newsrooms, at the beginning at least. "One of the main challenges will be to shoot sport with our standard high-end amateur cameras," he says. "The idea is not to have journalists who do everything all the time, but reporters who are multifunctional, able to provide good texts and images."

 
Nase adresa will also represent new challenges beyond the expertise usually expected from  journalists, especially for the local chief editors who will have to look after a coffee shop part of their time. "Ten years ago I had a short experience working for Coca Cola, but this will be new because I am not at all a food and beverage specialist," laughs Vitasek, in Moravia. Krizova, who is glad to cover very diverse topics, is also ready for another type of special assignment as a young reporter. She will be asked to take care of children visiting the Futuroom - turned into a "Junioroom" or "media camp" - to learn how to write an article or produce a video footage.


PPF Media's project will be preparing new generations of journalists and not just showing new forms of getting and providing the news.
 

BACKGROUND
The Czech Republic is a country of 10 million people living in 14 regions subdivided in 75 districts in total. Until 20 years ago, only the government and Communist Party related entities could publish newspapers. This was also the case for the regional dailies, and for more local publications at district or town levels. German group Verlagsgruppe Passau took over most of them in 1990 and after, under its Czech branch Vltava-Labe-Press which currently controls over 10 weeklies and over 70 dailies called Denik ("daily", followed by the name of the concerned locality). Nase adresa will have no direct competitors except in a few cases, because its editions will typically cover areas of 20-30,000 people while Denik and its affiliates are designed for larger groups, of over 100,000 inhabitants on average.

Demotix, the citizen journalism agency and openDemocracy, an open-sourced news site have agreed a new partnership, reports journalism.co.uk. openDemocracy will carry the Demotix widget and run its pictures alongside their stories and analysis.

The arrangement is a "perfect synergy" according to the Demotix announcement, "on the one hand, oD's razor-sharp, individual textual analysis, and on the other, Demotix's collective, collaborative visual representation of the world. Opposites attract".

The Economist has made the news industry the special focus of its business section for its latest edition. "Established" news is described as "being blown away" but news in general is otherwise considered to be "thriving."

In an opening paragraph which does not bode well for advocates of traditional media, the Economist ponders if "the surest sign that newspapers are doomed is that politicians, so often their targets, are beginning to feel sorry for them," in reference to Barack Obama's pledge to newspapers last weekend at an industry dinner in Washington, as well as Massachusetts senator, John Kerry's commitment to help the "endangered species" and, in particular, his region's beloved Boston Globe.

French daily newspaper Le Monde, which was founded by Hubert Beuve-Méry in 1944, has today printed its 20,000th edition. To celebrate, it has re-printed 20 of its front pages from the past 65 years, including Hitler's death, the shooting of John F Kennedy and the first men on the moon. Editor Eric Fottorino writes that, despite this collection, "the most beautiful pages are those which remain to be written."

In an editorial on the front page, Fottorino describes how the visions of Le Monde's founders have remained relevant throughout the decades. The original aims remain: "to give the best information that there is, the most reliable and trustworthy... to hand-pick, to weigh up, to analyse, to clarify, to correct, these are the key words of journalism."

Le Monde is amongst the most widely read newspapers in France, and maintains a paywall on its site - a somewhat unusual feat in an industry where one of the widest debates is how newspapers could successfully charge for their online content.  

Source: Le Monde

A large proportion of the discussion and innovation with regards to monetise newspapers' online content has come out of the United States, possibly unsurprisingly considering the intensity of the economic downturn there, and arguably the American entrepreneurial spirit. But the US is not alone in its contemplation of the issue, which could potentially 'save' newspapers, and the Editors Weblog took a look at the situation in France and the ideas that are emerging, based on two recent studies.

Masters student Matthieu de Vivie carried out a major research project entitled "Can online news be profitable?" in which he analysed the sectors' sources of income, along with debates that have taken place on French media blogs over the past few months. The Institute of Audio-visuals and Telecommunications in Europe (IDATE), a market analysis and consulting firm, has produced several reports on online strategies for the press.

The French situation

In France, printing and distribution costs are high, partly due to state regulation and to a very powerful printing union, meaning that print profits tend to be lower. However, papers do benefit from much public aid, and this was increased in January when president Nicolas Sarkozy offered the press a 600million euro bailout. Many media outlets are owned by groups which do not actually specialise in media, but are looking for "prestige and influence within it," according to de Vivie. He gives financial daily Les Echos as an example, which is owned by Bernard Arnault, LVMH. Groups such as Dassault which owns national daily Le Figaro, or Lagardere which owns the magazine Paris Match, Journal du Dimanche and part of Le Monde, have leaders who are friends with Sarkozy. Many journalists have protested at what they see as threats to the independence of their papers.

Related to this issue of possible government influence, the French press is suffering from a lack of reader confidence, similar to that in the US. A 2008 survey showed that 46% of people did not believe a large part of what they read in newspapers. The Internet has "done away with journalists' monopoly over the production of information," states de Vivie. The increased presence of other fonts of information and aggregators has encouraged people to look far and wide for news, as in other countries.

De Vivie concluded that today, it would be impossible for a major French newspaper to survive online-only, due to the abundance of information available online and weak advertising revenue. IDATE's reports also suggest that traditional advertising is not going to support a newspaper on its own. So what are the options for newspapers as their readers migrate online?

Charging readers

The most basic option is to charge readers for online content, as newspapers have done in print for many decades. IDATE believes that the pay wall model is extremely limited. However, leading newspaper Le Monde seems to have successfully adopted a part-paid, part-free model online. It is a rare feat for a general interest paper, at least compared to the English-speaking world, where only financial giants such as the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal seem to have accomplished this. Articles are free for three days after publication, after which they go behind a pay wall. They can then be purchased individually, or basic and premium subscriptions are available, the premium option including access to digital copies of the print paper. Subscriptions represented about 35% of LeMonde.fr's revenue, while advertising accounts for 65%, according to figures obtained by de Vivie in November 2008. LeMonde.fr still has high readership, suggesting that the site's traffic has not been damaged too much by the pay wall, and that the model makes sense.

De Vivie also looks at French site Mediapart, a participatory, paid venture without advertising, launched in 2008 but Edwy Plenel, a former Le Monde editor. It is free to read other citizen participation, but a subscription gives users the right to write articles or leave comments, and to read articles from the Mediapart team. The site, however had not captured its target number of subscribers in 2008.

Alternatives to advertising?

But if papers do not succeed in persuading users to pay for their news: what are the other options? In terms of advertising, the Internet has allowed new measures to develop, as well as the CPM, pay-per-click and pay-per-action rates offer a more accurate assessment of an advertisement's effectiveness. It also allows for targeted advertising, however this is not much used in France. CPMs are also considerably lower in France than in the UK or US: according to de Vivie, a CPM of $10 is considered good in France, compared to $30 elsewhere. Part of this is due to lower investment in advertising, as well as lower Internet penetration.

IDATE's report on the future of the press considers below-the-line advertising as "essential" for a newspaper's online advertising strategy, and also recommends e-commerce as a distinct possibility: "the media now have the opportunity of developing into veritable media stores by incorporating e-commerce offers into their editorial content. IDATE suggests that newspapers form alliances with book sellers to market the books that they review, or with ticket sellers to market plays or other events. Another option is to get involved with products that target a newspapers' readership, such as the Wall Street Journal's partnership with Wine.com. The Lagardere group has signed an agreement with Sumitomo, a Japanese leader in online commerce. The firm sees advertising and e-commerce as the main revenue streams from mobile news, rather than making users or telecoms operators pay for content.

De Vivie also believes that for larger media groups, diversifying online can be profitable. He cites the example of the Washington Post's ownership of profitable education service Kaplan Inc. which he feels "is allowing the Washington Post to survive." The French Le Figaro group includes numerous commercial websites such as Evene, Sport24, Cadremploi, BazarChic ou TickeTac, which represent "an important source of revenue." LeFigaro.fr is not currently profitable but it has an important audience. One of the problems with such a strategy, however, is that it risks diluting the brand's value, which is already a fear of many papers as reading habits change online.

Potential of online-only

De Vivie is does see some potential in online-only sites, but only in certain conditions. Firstly, he believes that small "supple" organisations which offer content with significant added value, focussed on specific niches and gathering a large community, are a good approach. "This equilibrium is nonetheless precarious," he added, particularly in France where advertising brings in less revenue than in the US and it is often necessary to develop alternative sources of income.

One French success story is Rue89, which combines the skills of journalists with the knowledge of experts and the participation of citizens. Amateur contributions are checked and edited by the site's reporters. De Vivie explains that the site quickly acquired "strong journalistic credibility," offering exclusive stories and investigations. He estimates that the site could quite feasibly become profitable, especially as Rue89 does not make all of its income from advertising, but also develops websites for others, which makes up an estimated one third of its revenue. He believes that other online players also have potential to break even, due to their low fixed costs and overheads.

The impression that emerges from the studies is that online news has great potential and possibilities continue to evolve. It is therefore advisable that newspapers continue to innovate and do not resign themselves to relying on print income for as long as possible.  

Following the launch of an English-language paper recently launched by the Chinese government, a monthly newspaper for English-speaking expatriates in France is due to launch in June. Nicki Wade aims to make The French Post a paper that will enlighten expats with "what's being debated around French dinner tables." The ex-Emap publishing director has chosen Michael Streeter, a former news editor of the Independent on Sunday and other UK dailies, to edit the new paper.

The International Journalism Festival took place in Perugia, Italy from April 1-5. The festival addressed the differences between old and new media and the necessity to integrate the two, and many other widely discussed issues affecting the media today, such as integrating print and web news in light of readers' migration online, the necessity to finance journalism as a watchdog, and hence the need to make readers pay for online news.

All New York Times staff are facing a 5% pay cut for 9 months starting from April, and 100 employees on the business side are being laid off, the New York Times Company announced yesterday. Non-union employees at the Boston Globe are also affected, as are those at the group's corporate headquarters. Executive editor Bill Keller said that the pay cut should avert newsroom staff cuts at the NYT this year: although if the Newspaper Guild does not agree with the 5% drop for those it represents on the newsroom staff, Keller announced that 60-70 people would have to be let go.

Publisher Arthur Sulzberger and CEO Janet Robinson wrote a memo to staff in which they described the decision as "very difficult" and blamed the "toughest" environment that they have seen for years. In return for the pay cut, staff will receive 10 days extra holiday this year: so in effect, the employees are being told to take two weeks of unpaid leave. According to the NYT journalist Richard Perez-Pena, the move is being presented as a pay cut rather than forced unpaid leave to avoid federal rules with respect to furloughed employees, at least with regard to non-union workers. Salaries should return to the previous level in 2010 provided economic conditions improve.

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"Democracy can't exist without newspapers" was the headline of former Scotsman editor Tim Luckhurst's article in the Independent on Monday. He was writing about the declining fortunes of two of Scotland's biggest national papers; the Herald and the Scotsman. Luckhurst charts the decline of the newspaper for which he "once hired foreign correspondents from Washington DC to Beijing", but "is now a parochial rag with meagre claim to influence in Edinburgh". He cites the 9.18% drop in the Scotsman's sales in the year ending January 2009, and a parallel figure of 9.7% for the Herald.

Many London based newspapers print Scottish editions, but "until recently Scottish newspapers were the only titles published outside London that could possibly claim national status." To survive, they had to cover Scotland better than their rivals, and cover world news to the same level as their London based competitors. However, recent spates of redundancies and a "brain drain" of talented journalists migrating from Scottish newspapers to their London counterparts has left the editorial quality of these two Scottish newspapers somewhat depleted.

In the US, the Minnesota Job Skills Partnership Program has given two newspapers and a journalism school $238,000 to help the newspapers improve their Internet capabilities.  The Duluth News Tribune, the St Paul Pioneer Press and the University of Minnesota's School of Journalism and Mass Communication are the recipients of the grant, and for their part will provide in-kind contributions of staff time for training.  It is thought to be "the first time a government agency has provided a job training grant to help the newspaper industry reinvigorate itself with the aid of a journalism school".

The government bailout of the press in France is state aid on an obviously much larger scale than in Minnesota, but both scenarios give rise to questions over the influence that is gained with such investment.  There was criticism in France over the potential stifling affect that could follow the move.  Reliance upon state money could potentially cause reliance upon state approval, which would limit criticism of the government.  On the other hand, government investment in the media could be precisely because of the medias very importance to a democratic system.

Source: Editor & Publisher

Following Getty Images' decision to close its citizen journalism arm Scoopt, the venture's founder Kyle MacRae explained in an interview why "the dedicated cit-j agency model isn't the way forward." His reasoning was that even though many members of the public may well be on a breaking news scene with a camera, it is extremely unlikely that they will be a member of a citizen photojournalism organisation. But has Citizenside, a small, young company based in Paris, found a solution? The Editors Weblog spoke to co-founder Matthieu Stefani and editor-in-chief Aurélien Viers about Citizenside's work and the way they see the future of citizen photojournalism.

Citizenside operates in two different ways. On its own site, it functions in a similar way to other agencies: it gathers photos from its community - 35,000 members, close to 7,000 of which are active - which are published after thorough checking of the photos' validity. Staff receive 500-600 images a day, and those which pass the checking are categorised into sections such as headlines, showbiz, or unusual, or gathered into portfolios with others along the same theme or about the same event. Media outlets can purchase the photos from Citzenside, with up to 75% of the price going to the contributor. Agence France Presse owns a 34% stake of Citizenside, and is currently trialling incorporating the company's amateur images into its image forums, where any of the news agency's 7000 partners would be able to buy them. Content is clearly labelled as amateur, and Citizenside stressed the importance of differentiating the work of 'citizens' from that of professionals.

AFP is currently trialling incorporating Citizenside's amateur pictures into its image forums where any of its 7000 partners can buy them

Staff are proactive about finding images, "we don't just wait for people to send them," explained Stefani. Their kit allows them to locate users within a certain radius of any given spot, so if something happens which they want to know more about, they can send out an email requesting photos. "We send 3 or 4 of these a day," Stefani clarified. The company tries to avoid receiving photographs straight from mobile phones via MMS as the quality is poor and it is much harder to check an image's authenticity. Developers have however released an iPhone application, and are looking at launching similar products for Blackberry and  Google's Android phone. Staff also provide feedback when contributors send in images that cannot be used.

Mainstream Media success through factchecking

Citizenside photos have recently been on the cover of French daily Liberation, and in Le Point magazine and Le Figaro magazine, so the company is making a name for itself. The Liberation photo was of a snow storm, and Viers explained how a storm was a good example of an instance when citizen photo reporting really works: anybody can be a witness and as it might be harder to travel, professional photographers will not necessarily be able to cover the whole storm effectively. He added that Citizenside members were definitely not trying to play the role of reporters, rather they are "news witnesses."

One of the ways in which Citzenside differs from other sites that gather user photos and video, such as self-declared "unedited, unfiltered" CNN's iReport, is that all images are checked for authenticity. The company's developers have created a tool through which users can send photos, and which provides various details to staff about each photo or video that they receive, such as the camera brand and model, the resolution, and the date the photo was taken. Crucially, the programme can also alert staff to whether a photo has been modified online. Using the sender's IP address, the tool also shows from where in the world images have been sent. With this information, Citizenside staff can get a pretty good idea of whether what the contributor has told them about the image is indeed true. "I think at the moment, we are the only company who can offer such a specialised tool for the media," Viers remarked, and Stefani explained that developers would continue to refine the product to make it more and more effective. If staff still have doubts, particularly in the case of major, potentially controversial stories, they will contact the sender directly via telephone or email. "We will double check, triple check, quadruple check if it is a big story," stressed Stefani. "If someone appears to be trying to mislead us, we will expel them from the community," he added.

"We will double check, triple check, quadruple check if it is a big story." 

This emphasis on checking the authenticity of the images significantly increases the value of Citizenside's service, as amateur content with no professional input can be relatively meaningless. Citizen journalism site The Observers offers a similar commitment to fact-checking, a trend which has the potential to bring citizen journalism closer to the mainstream media in terms of respectability. Stefani asserted that he believes it is the company's focus on "quality not quantity" which makes their service so appealing to clients.  "We don't believe in the idea that everybody is a journalist, just because they have a camera and a blog," underlined Viers. Rather what he believes works is a form of professional-amateur collaboration: "an association of bloggers, witnesses, journalists and editors."

A global citizen photo network?

The most crucial difference of Citizenside, however, is its mission to share its technology. Stefani explained that he and the other Citizenside founders quite quickly understood that, as Kyle MacRae pointed out, one agency alone will never be able to get an image from every breaking story. But what if many different publications all over the world each hosted their own UGC community that was managed by Citizenside? This is what Citizenside is aiming to do by offering its 'Reporter Kit' to traditional publications, sold via AFP. The tool was released in September 2008 and the first client to purchase it was Voici, a French gossip magazine. Citizenside is about to launch the same service for Public, one of Voici's rivals and is also in talks with one of France's biggest daily newspapers, a couple of regionals and one UK paper. The Voici community allows readers of the magazine to upload their images to the site, and if Voici decides to use them in its print magazine or on its main website, then it will pay the contributor, and Citizenside takes commission. If Voici would like to sell an image to another outlet, then Citizenside retains exclusive resell rights, and the profit will be split equally between Citizenside, the magazine and the contributor. Recently, for example, a video showing Hollywood star Lindsey Lohan being showered with flour by animal activists on her way into a Parisian club was sold to US TV channel Extra TV for a considerable sum. Stefani described how he plans for Citizenside's income to be based largely on this reselling of content, rather than on sale of the technology itself. Incidentally, a years' use of the Reporter Kit tool would start at about 13,000 euros, moving to upwards of 20,000 for premium tools and tailor-made development.

What if many different publications all over the world each hosted their own UGC community that was managed by Citizenside? 

Citizenside hopes to make the checking process easier and easier for its clients, for instance by developing a system which would make automatically judge an image's authenticity based on different variables and display a red or green light. Viers stressed that he sees citizen contributions as essential in today's media environment, if news organisations "ignore UGC they are going to make mistakes, and they are going to miss opportunities." Stefani explained that "we had a hard time being understood at first because journalists would just see us as competitors." But he insisted that rather than a competitor, Citizenside aims to be "a new tool, a new source of information." They believe that particularly in a local context, such a community could be extremely valuable to their clients, who would be able to forge better relations with readers, and provide a greater level of coverage. Viers pointed out that hyperlocal news is often incredibly important to people, and it gives citizen witnesses a real chance to flourish.

Dollars for amateurs

So Citizenside believes it has found the solution to the problems raised by Scoopt founder Kyle MacRae. Stefani brought up the example of the man with the first Hudson plane crash photo previously cited by MacRae, who argued that it was the man's instinct to share the photo rather than sell it, and that he was very unlikely to have heard of a citizen photojournalism project that would help him sell it. If Citizenside achieves its goal of establishing popular image sharing community sites for major newspapers, then in the future, a similar witness to an event may well think of sending such a photo to their favourite newspaper, where it would be shared amongst the community, but could also be sold for a significant amount of cash. The project has a great of deal of potential. Obviously, the company is still very small and is yet to break international barriers, though they hope to soon. Stefani admitted that they will need a cash injection if they are to expand beyond Europe into Asian or American markets. There is likely to be some resistance from more traditional media operations to the inclusion of amateur content in their publications, and it might take time to change mindsets.

But the current economic downturn could in fact benefit the rise of citizen journalism as news organisations look for cheaper ways to obtain coverage of events. Editor and Publisher recently ran a story on World Press Photo and Pulitzer prize winning photographer Anthony Suau, who is currently struggling to find work because media outlets do not have enough money to pay him. Using photos from readers is undoubtedly cheaper than employing prize-winning professional. Citizen photojournalism does make sense, if there is a way to prove that the photos are real. A reporter can write a story from afar, but you cannot take a photo from afar. And although many photos will not be of the quality of those taken by experienced photojournalists, professionals cannot be everywhere at once, and taking advantage of the camera-armed public is definitely better than nothing.

Photo credits: Laure Bernard

Following the launch of Slate.fr in France last week Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief of Slate Group, has been discussing its global potential.   Thirteen years after the original Slate.com was launched, Slate.fr is the group's first foray into foreign territory.  Speaking to paidContent, Weisberg says "if it works in France, it would absolutely be a very powerful argument to try in other international territories".

With funding and a formidable team of former editors from a variety of French publications,  Slate.fr will start with a team of 8 staffers and is currently producing between 6 and 7 articles per day.  The articles generally include 2 or 3 translated from the Washington site - and Slate.com will start translating some of Slate.fr's articles for publication on the American site.

Editorially, Slate.com is a mix of humour and irony with serious news, and Eric Leser, founder and ex Le Monde business editor, accepts that this mix is a "challenge" in France.  But he is optimistic for Slate.fr and its future diversification into other languages "if we can prove that the Slate.com model can succeed in another language, the next step will be... in Italian, in German in Spanish."

Source: paidContent

Slate.fr, US online magazine Slate's French edition, finally saw the launch of its beta edition on Tuesday, after experiencing financial complications that pushed the date by a month in January. Co-founder Johan Hufnagel, former 20minutes.fr editor-in-chief, spoke to Le Figaro about the launch.

Slate.fr's goal is to follow in the footsteps of Slate.com by offering reporting that is both "ironic" and "precise". The site will not only feature political and economic stories but also  "original subjects" such as articles about the Internet or cultural issues, according to Hufnagel.  

An International Association of Sports Newspapers (IASN) has been formed by six of the world's leading sports newspapers, to "defend and promote the interests and freedom of the sports press," according to the press release. The founding members of the IASN are the Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport, El Mundo Deportivo and Marca in Spain, L'Equipe in France, Olé in Argentina, and Lance in Brazil.

Santi Nolla, the Editor of El Mundo Deportivo, was appointed the first President of the Association. Rosarita Cuccoli, an Italian-born Parisian and a specialist in international relations, was appointed Executive General Secretary. "The motto of the Association - Sports press for sports in society - is meant to emphasise the importance of sport in conveying values in society, and therefore the key contribution that sport information brings in that respect" commented Cuccoli.

 

The IASN, which is affiliated with the World Association of Newspapers and whose international secretariat is based in Paris, will "promote the role of sports newspapers as a marketing tool for the brands associated with sport; promote sports and reading among children; encourage volunteerism in the sporting world; fight against racism and xenophobia in sport; promote the use of sport as a tool in development policies; and safeguard the ethical and economic interests of sports newspapers".

Source: WAN press release

To mark the relaunch of the Editors Weblog, the World Editors Forum is running a special series entitled "Doing More with Less." The series highlights major trends that editors-in-chief are using to steer their newsrooms through the difficult economic climate. The eighth in the series takes a look at France24's The Observers, which provides professionally-edited citizen journalism.

The Observers is a France24 venture launched in December 2007, which combines citizen journalism with professional editing.  Only three full time staff work on the project, yet it operates two versions of its website (one in English, one in French), has just started a weekly radio show and is about to start a weekly television slot. The Editors Weblog spoke to Julien Pain, Founder and Editor of the site, about its work.

How it works: zooming in and zooming out

The Observers is a collaborative website, with "professional content and an international scope," stressed Pain. The site displays a series of documents - either photos or videos - taken by amateurs from around the world. According to Pain, "you won't see a photo taken by a professional journalist on the site." Editors, based in Paris, then provide some background information on each document and 'observers' from the country it discusses will comment. The idea is to zoom in on a small anecdote and then zoom out, placing it within a wider context.  The stories picked to follow might be connected to well-known breaking news items, or might be about something which is relatively unknown to readers. Occasionally an extraordinary item will come to light, such as a short video sent in by a policeman in Gaza, which shows the entrance to an alleged tunnel linking the Gaza Strip to Egypt.

Who are the Observers?

As well as the three full time staff in Paris, about a dozen freelancers have been taken on as 'regional editors,' and they are paid for their time but only work when required.  Most of the documents used come from the 700 'observers' around the world who essentially act as trusted contacts. The idea is to receive information from people who are on the scene of whatever story is being told. They are used as local sources, Pain explained, "we don't try to make them into reporters. We use their expertise and local knowledge." He always looks for truly local contacts, "I am not going to get somebody in Beijing to comment on something that happened 3000km away in the Sichuan province," he insisted.  When possible, Pain always tries to get people native to the country to 'observe,' rather than French or English people living abroad, as they obviously tend to have a better knowledge of the local language and culture. Anybody who goes to the Observers site can register as a "friend" and is free to comment or contact the site, and those 'friends' who provide useful information over a course of time will be invited to become Observers. Pain hopes that the already substantial network will grow further.

Observers are not reporters: "We use their expertise and local knowledge"

Blog-style site breaks down barriers

The site takes advantage of the best aspects of a blog, but maintains professional direction. The site has the informal tone of a blog; it aims to be "smooth and easy to read," commentated Pain. He believes that "blogs have broken down the barrier between journalists and readers. Now on a blog, you can talk to your readers." The Observers hopes to be part of a dialogue, allowing comments on all stories and responding to reader reactions. "We are always very clear about what we do know, and what we don't," Pain clarified: for instance if the date of a photo is known but the exact location has not been proved, and this is where readers' knowledge could come in useful. He added that readers are asked "to provide information and links to update the story," and he occasionally specifically asks if people can check or verify content. "The story doesn't stop when it's published," Pain explained, and editors will frequently go back and add or change things.

Essential professional editing

What differentiates the Observers from other similar citizen journalism projects linked to traditional media outlets, such as CNN's iReport, is that although much content is produced by amateurs, everything is professionally checked and edited. Fact checking is a time consuming process, Pain explained, but crucial to maintain the validity of the site. "Amateur content is far more valuable if edited by professional journalists," he believes, as when faced with the vast amount of citizen produced content available on the web, it is difficult to know what is reliable. The Observers is confident that is can be a trusted source, and the confirmation process often involves checking facts with more than one contact. Pain also explained that he would feel very uncomfortable about associating unverified information with The Observers' parent brand, France24.

"Amateur content is far more valuable if edited by professional journalists"

What's next?

The Observers has just started a weekly 15 minute radio show in partnership with Radio France Internationale. The idea is to take a document and analyse it, with an expert on the subject matter, and then Pain explains how the Observers obtained it. A television slot on France24 is expected to follow shortly; it will be along similar lines, but just five minutes long. The same content will be used for all three platforms - online, radio and television - but will be presented in different ways. Pain also hopes to start an Arabic version of the site soon, and possibly increase staff numbers.

Pain was clear that the Observers' work does not intend to replace professional journalism, rather it hopes to provide an alternative voice in the news media world, where so often, almost identical stories will be published countless times. The site is likely to fascinate anybody interested in international news, and the model is extremely innovative, with an impressive output considering its tiny number of full time staff. The Observers has found a way to validate citizen journalism and turn amateur content into something more valuable, and this could well be a model used more frequently in the future as news outlets struggle with limited resources.

There is no such thing as a free meal. Or is there?

Media pundits around the world have been discussing the idea for newspapers to go completely digital. Newspapers are having to restructure newsrooms and traditional ideas to adapt to digital times, in an attempt to stay in the race as well as survive the economic crisis. In the face of all this, does charging for news online make sense? Can newspapers survive by putting all their content on the web and making people pay for it? Garry Storch, editor and administrator of ourblook.com believes so.