PLUGGEDIN - Fledgling website hopes to open journalism to all

By David Lawsky

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A year-old website, inspired by the use of Twitter and Internet media reporting out of Iran, hopes to become the go-to forum for citizen journalists everywhere as traditional media pulls back.

Allvoices.com, a fledgling social networking-cum-news aggregator site launched in 2008, uses algorithms to help it sort news from around the world in a manner akin to what Google Inc does.

Its twist is that it encourages and enables anyone to be a reporter and uses an in-house system to rate would-be journalists on popularity and credibility.

"The barriers are gone. The communications between citizens are free. Trying to inhibit conversations is not going to work," said Erik Sundelof, co-founder and vice president of social media for the fledgling site.

Twitter underscored how the lines were blurring between traditional and new media when it carried citizen views and news from Iran, even as the government stifled other media. The U.S. State Department has publicly acknowledged its importance as a communications tool.

Blogs and websites from Youtube to Twitter have mushroomed over the past decade, increasingly offering the public a channel through which to report and offer views on the news. A growing crop of sites, such as iBrattleboro.com or OhmyNews in South Korea, cater specifically to would-be journalists.

Allvoices's founders point to a dwindling number of accredited foreign correspondents as traditional outlets cut costs to combat increasingly elusive advertising revenue.

"How are you going to go out there and cover every single community?" asks Aki Hashimi, chief marketing officer.