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"We owe a lot to Nicolas Sarkozy," said Pierre Haski, founder and editor-in-chief of independent French news site Rue89.com .

The site, which was launched on the same day Sarkozy was elected, broke the news that a French newspaper had suppressed a story on the President's then wife Cecilia - a priceless piece of promotion for the site, former Liberation journalist Haski told delegates at the World Editors Forum today.

Without spending any money on promotion the site has relied on ‘viral marketing’ and now attracts 650,000 monthly visitors drawn by the portal’s alternative approach to news.

"We are not running on 'hot news'. We never put a single wire story online," Haski explained.

"We used to have a Reuters wire but after three months we realised no one was looking at it. If people were coming to read us it was because we offered something new."

The site has also dispensed with publishing deadlines and takes around a third of its content from non-journalists.

These are not citizen journalists, Haski said, but part of a 'pro-am family'.

"Professional journalists have the final say on what goes online. We feel journalism is a set of professional and ethical rules and there's no reason why these should be weakened because we are online," he added.

Under this system journalists are actively encouraged to dig into comments left on the site to find new contributors and to participate in the debate.

"We ask our journalists and authors to be the moderators themselves. A lot of websites in France have externalised moderation but the journalists don't read the comments that are written and I think it's a big mistake.

"When the contributor takes part in the debate the level of the comments goes up. If a reader knows that the author is going to reply they write differently and they come back, which is great for our traffic."

To monetise the site further new revenue models are being looked into, Haski said, including content for mobile and story syndication, particularly to television.

However, the site is predicted to break even in 18 months and has already set its sites on attracting one million users a month.

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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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