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Citizen journalism platform Citizenside is to trial incorporating amateur photographs into Agence France-Presse's (AFP) professional network.

The pilot will see images submitted to Citizenside made available to clients of the agency, which is a stakeholder in the site , via its image forum - an online database of visual content from the AFP and its partners.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, Matthieu Stefani, vice president of Citizenside and founder of the original site Scooplive, said opening up user-generated content (UGC) in this way would help promote the value of citizen journalism to media houses.

The AFP's 7,000 partners would be able to buy the citizen images with contributors receiving up to 75 per cent of the sale price, added Stefani.

In February last year an amateur video of former Société Générale trader Jérôme Kerviel was expected to sell for 100,000 euros .

"AFP is a professional gross content provider and this is another information flow that they can sell at some point," he said.

"AFP already does sell some images [from Citizenside contributors], but this lets them get more images in an approach that is alternative and amateur."

The source of the Citizenside images will be clearly marked as amateur content, he added.

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Written by

Laura Oliver
Laura Oliver
Laura Oliver is a freelance journalist, a contributor to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, co-founder of The Society of Freelance Journalists and the former editor of Journalism.co.uk (prior to it becoming JournalismUK)

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