Introduction to Agoravox

AgoraVox puts together one of the first large-scale European initiatives for a totally free of charge "citizen journalism". AgoraVox is a multimedia platform available to every citizen willing to spread new information. It is based on tree core principles:

1- We are all information sensors

In other words anyone can become an information source for AgoraVox: bloggers, internet users, simple citizens, associations, journalists... Our initial standpoint is simple: thanks to the effective democratization of multimedia and information technologies (IT), each citizen is an "information sensor" that has the ability to potentialy become a "reporter" who can identify and offer high added-value information.

Indeed, with means of a simple phone, a computer, a camera or a a digital video camera, thousands of internet users or bloggers are now able to perform an incredible local work that no media, no organization, no association could ever accomplish (that is what we saw for the Tsunami or the London attemps, for instance). No press agency can have a reporter at the corner of every street! Citizens then become mere "real-time sensors" of what is occurring at every moment on the planet. Therefore the amazing potential represented by millions of people acting collectively in a network fashion will enable a transition from an "official" to a "real" version of the information...

2- From mass media the media of the masses

Whereas traditional media bring down the information from the top to the bottom ("one to many" principle), AgoraVox makes it move along in a transversal way ("many to many" principle). This thanks to a very motley team of citizen authors, constituted with very various profiles. Indeed, generally speaking, on AgoraVox the function or status do not really matter. You can be a journalist, a blogger, a state employee, a CEO, a syndicalist, student or unemployed... What is important is the quality and accuracy of the information gathered. Our conviction is that we can obtain a real informational and editorial richness thanks to this diversity of profiles.

3- A never-seen-before editorial policy and editorial committee

Generally speaking, the objective of the AgoraVox editorial policy is to publish verifiable news related to objective events or facts, as far as possible unpublished ones. We are indeed convinced that each internet user is capable of identifying first unpublished information, accessible with difficulty or purposely hidden.

That said, we are fully conscious that an initiative such as AgoraVox’s raises the risks of disinformation, destabilization, manipulation or rumors propagation. For this reason, we believe it is essential to put in place a new type of editorial committee that can act as a ’filter’. The submitted information is thus moderated to avoid any political or ideological drift. Given the specificity of AgoraVox the editorial committee is not copied exactly from the traditional newspaper committee. It is constituted by independant authors who wished to participate, but also by experts in strategic information watch of the Cybion company. Each moderator has to vote individually on the articles based on their relevancy to the news and their originality.

But beyond verifications made by authors and watchmen, AgoraVox glorifies a collective intelligence process to enhance the reliability of the online information. This process is based on readers comments. As soon as a story is published, any reader can freely comment it, criticize it, complete it, enrich it or denounce it. The author and the committee can interact with the readers to complete and improve the story. As the blogger journalist Dan Gillmor says, "my readers are often better informed than I am". Sometimes the editorial committee decides to delete a story after comments by readers (especially in case of obvious plagiarism).
We highly encourage readers who have some doubt to express it at the end of each story. As is often the case, studious readers research and investigate to validate or invalidate a story, and these are excellent initiatives whe greatly welcome and encourage. The informational contribution of each story has to be evaluated in the context of responses it rose.