AFP BOSS PLEASED WITH HIS PERFORMANCE SO FAR.

SYDNEY, April 4 Asia Pulse - The boss of the oldest news agency in the world was all smiles as he looked out over Sydney harbour and sipped his double espresso.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) chief executive Pierre Louette has already accomplished one of his goals for the year, after recently signing a deal with Dow Jones & Company to provide editorial content to its global business and financial news service Dow Jones Newswire.

Dow Jones & Co, recently snapped up by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (ASX:NWS), has broken a 40-plus year relationship with US agency Associated Press (AP) to link up with AFP.

Mr Louette, who visited Australia this week, said Dow Jones was a key reference in the world of news.

"We feel proud and it is very important to us and it is a tribute to the quality of our work," he said.

"For the 40 last years, Dow Jones was relying heavily on AP for both domestic news and international coverage.

"In the future they will not rely on them any more for international coverage.

"It is a big change."

And big change is what Mr Louette is about.

Since being named head of AFP in 2005, Mr Louette has been transforming the multilingual agency, operating in 165 countries, into a full multimedia outlet.

AFP is pouring resources into its video operations, which now have 30 video producers globally.

Mr Louette said the success of AFP's video operations remained a key priority.

AFP has taken a 32 per cent stake in the French online firm, CitizenSide, getting a slice of the internet networking world, where the public can sell photographs and videos of newsworthy events to the media.

One of CitizenSide's recent scoops was receiving an amateur video of the police questioning Societe Generale rogue trader Jerome Kerviel, who is accused of losing his bank 5 billion euros (US$7.806 billion).

Mr Louette wants to take AFP even further into the web's social networking through Facebook, where AFP's subsidiary Newzwag has created a game called Deadline News Quiz.

The San Franciso-based company Newzwag is a "laboratory to develop new products for the web", Mr Louette said.

Mr Louette has a background in finance and law and is not a journalist, but talks passionately about communication and independence.

"News will never be a commodity like electricity or water," he said.

"It needs to be tailored and it needs to be protected.

"This may sound a bit old fashioned, but we really intend on protecting the capacity of our people to produce news all over the world.

"News needs to inform the public."

AFP was founded in 1835 by Charles-Louis Havas, the father of global journalism.

In 1953 AFP gained worldwide international fame for breaking the news of Stalin's death.

In 1969 it launched an Arabic language service, which has since helped propel it to be the leader among international agencies in the Middle East.

Mr Louette began his career working as a civil servant in France and helped launch the national Information Highways project - a precursor of the internet - and went on to work for the public broadcaster France Televisions, Havas Advertising and the luxury products giant LVMH.

"Nothing and everything was going to take me to AFP," he said.

"I'm not a trained journalist ...(but) was always interested in press and newspapers," he said.

"Creating companies and revamping companies, selling assets and buying assets, all of this is almost exactly what I do today."

Mr Louette said he felt a "duty" to serve AFP. The job was not just about making profits, despite the agency's record sales turnover of 260 million euros (A$447.2 million) in 2007.

"We are doing something that others don't do, and that is to cover the world," he said, ordering another double espresso.

(AAP) 04-04 1844