AFP buys stake in citizen journalism site Citizenside

journalism.co.uk - Agence France-Presse (AFP) has bought a 30% stake in the citizen journalism platform Scooplive, which will be renamed Citizenside.

AFP has stated that it will not take part in editorial decisions on the site, which allows users to publish and sell films and photos for commission.

According to a press statement from the agency, it is hoped the investment will allow AFP to 'get closer to readers' and to bring the site's content to AFP's customers for use in their own news production.

"This is for us a purely commercial and technical experiment in the Web 2.0 field, to help our clients, mainly in the media field," said Pierre Louette, AFP chairman.

AFP's investment was matched by another French firm IAM, but the remaining shares for the site, which was set up in 2006, will stay with the platform's creators.

"Citizenside will capitalize on its founders and new partners experience to create a link between two worlds: professional journalism and amateur reporting. We will thus be able to offer good quality documents in real time," said Matthieu Stefani, a founder of Scooplive, in a news release from Citizenside.com.