New Citizenside venture aims to cover neglected news spots

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Citizenside , the amateur photography and video platform backed by Agence France Presse (AFP), has teamed up with communications agency, Frontview Production, to create a new photography platform for humanitarian news. Frontview Report will be aimed at 'social, humanitarian and environmental activists' who witness or document current affairs, or are based in newsworthy locations.

The platform will act as an agent for these individuals and sell images to news agencies and organsations, the organisations have announced. Frontview and Citizenside will retain a maximum of 30 per cent of the sale price with a minimum of 70 per cent going to the photographer.

"The aim is to show people situations that sometimes nobody cares about. People have often just a perception of the reality; we want to complete it or make it more precise," Frontview's Francois Dupaquier told Journalism.co.uk.

"NGO or solidarity workers, all over the world, without being journalists, can have an impact on it. New technologies and the internet are right tools for it and in Frontview they have a partner who understands their work and constraints and who is sensitive to context."

In order to establish the context of an image, contributors will be asked to supply information and Frontview will act as moderators, rejecting images that may be unethical or that put people at risk.

The site can help cover areas of the world that fall outside of journalistic coverage or political news agendas, said Dupaquier.

"There is a need for NGOs to promote their action and to share their field experience. As they are quite often the only witnesses of very important events, their testimonies are very interesting for media houses," Matthieu Stefani, vice president of Citizenside.com, told Journalism.co.uk.

"We aim at speeding the transmission process from the front to the editors."

By sending images to the site, photographers agree not to sell the pictures to another outlet for an initial three months. Full details of the licensing terms can be seen on the website .