South’s Korea’s OhMyNews may have written the book on citizen journalism but Agoravox, which started in France about 15 months ago and has since spawned an English edition, has opened a new chapter. An interview with the editor of Agoravox UK, conducted by a British journalism site, offers insights into this European experiment.

“Citizen journalism has … problems,” Agoravox editor Guillaume Champeau told journalism.co.uk. “There are tremendous amounts of information to sort, unsupported personal opinions to discard, false reports to identify, etc. When we started Agoravox, we kept those problems in mind. We continually take advantage of the expertise of Cybion, our parent company, in monitoring web information to determine the most accurate sources, to check the information submitted by registered writers and to ensure that stories published on AgoraVox are not libellous. In order to do this properly, we use editors to check each story before publication.”

The interview goes on to discuss other points, including the strengh of the blogging phenomenon in France.

Vive la blog! As long as I’m on the topic, the Center for Media Research has distilled research on the French blogging scene done by Laurent ( Crmmetrix) Flores. According to the Center’s summary :

“Outside the USA, France is one of the leading blogging countries and its blogosphere (bloggers and/or blogs’ creators) is growing fast. According to a recent exclusive crmmetrix study, 26.7% of the French online population visit a blog at least once a month.”

Show them the money. Online Journalism Review is looking for head count of “journalist entrepreneurs who have made the transition to becoming their own online news publisher” and who make “at least $1,000 a month.” OJR adds:

“Over the next few months, we’d like to tell the stories of some of the journalists who have made this change. So we’d especially like to hear from those of you willing to do a Q&A with us, or to appear in-person at an OJR conference.”