Sullivan: Orato is a citizen journalism web site, which means there are no credentials required to post a story. That makes it very different from online newspapers, which feature the work of professionals. On the other hand, it's not a blog -- correspondents are asked to submit news stories about events in their communities. We encourage first-person "I-witness" reporting from people who are involved in or affected by the stories they are telling. We're looking for the opposite of objectivity--subjectivity! But we're asking people to tell stories relevant to one of our news categories, which is different than a blog, which is perhaps the ultimate in unfettered self-expression.

2) Even a quick preview shows that you add much more value to the stories you present than does NowPublic, the news aggregator the Associated Press just made a deal with. Can you speak to how you see yourself as more than an aggregator?

Sullivan: Well, we never thought of ourselves as aggregators to begin with. We were always serious about encouraging people to post directly to Orato. Perhaps we were a little naοve..."if you build it, they will come." But that's exactly what has happened. I think our attempt to encourage original reporting through various mechanisms (e.g. assigning citizen journalists to cover events such as the Pickton trial) has prompted other citizen journalists to try their hand. At the same time, we'll encourage bloggers to post a relevant piece from their blog on the site. It's just not automatic -- it has an editorial dimension. The random dimension of the site is that anyone, anywhere, can post a story -- if they follow the guidelines and get through the banned words filters (we filter for obscenity and hate language).

3) How big is your staff and how are they compensated?

Sullivan: We have a full-time staff of two -- Senior Editor Heather Wallace and Associate Editor Cecilia Jamasmie and an intern (Avi Silberstein) (and me -- I run my own business and have a contract to provide Orato with editorial guidance.) No one's going to get rich on their stipends, as Orato is just beginning to generate revenue.

4) When did you start Orato and what, if anything or site, was your inspiration to create a Citizen Journalism site?

Sullivan: A lot of the inspiration props go to our founder, Sam Yehia, a local Vancouver entrepreneur, who approached me with the idea seven years ago, long before anyone coined the term "citizen journalist." He had this idea to be the "CNN of First Person Journalism." For a long time, we worked on the idea on a low-intensity basis. For a year prior to launch, we had a site demonstrating the sort of stories we were interested in, and soliciting correspondents. The current site was launched in the summer of 06 -- we finally decided to get the site online and raise capital later -- a brave decision! By 2006, it was clear that citizen journalism was a phenomenon waiting to happen. We went to school on a whole bunch of sites, I think Orato is unique.

5) In reading your site over a number of days, I noticed many stories about sex workers, Playboy models, toddler beauty pageant queens. Who is your readership and what sorts of topics do they seem to prefer?

Sullivan: Good question: Our audience is morphing like crazy -- it has tripled since December. Stories work through the site in cycles or strings. One Playboy model begets another. There are story strings that come from the correspondents and those stories we target -- Little Miss Sunshine was the inspiration for the pre-teen beauty queen. Generally, if you check out "This Week In Orato" And "Write Tomorrow's Top Story And Win," you'll get an idea of our editorial program. We're trying to identify events and phenomena that will prompt people to write their own stories -- men and women both.

6) Providing fact checking and editing services for a fee are part of your stated offerings. Did you have business model when you started? Was financial profitability part of your goals?

Sullivan: I thought we took all that stuff off the site -- we're not charging anyone to post and we're not providing editorial services at this time -- although we hope to in the future. Right now, we're trying to Build Our Community, and we want to keep the threshold of entry as low as possible, yet maintain a good environment so people will feel comfortable posting stories. We hope to be able to sell ads when the cost per thousand is competitive and we plan to provide services, including syndication, as we grow. Profitability is a definite goal.

7) How will you know you are successful?

Sullivan: When we get enough investment to realize our ambitions and are able to make the site at least self-sustaining, so we can take it to the next level...if that sounds incremental, it probably is.

8) What do you think makes Orato unique?

Sullivan: Orato is unique in that it's a collaboration between professional and amateur journalists --we want to provide a way for those without a voice to participate in the public discussion and we want to bring completely new, unmediated voices to that discussion. We want to support citizen journalism in new ways -- such as hiring sex trade writers to cover a trial of a man accused of preying on sex trade workers. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense, but no one has ever done it before. We want to bring citizen journalism into the mainstream.

9) What is a typical day for you at Orato?

Sullivan: There is no typical day. I have my own Sullivan Media office, and down the street, I have a desk at Orato. So far today, I've answered 47 Orato emails, and it's not noon. We meet several times a week: on the next site upgrade, on editorial matters, with our trial correspondents, with investors, and Sam and I get together a couple of times a week. These days, I spend a lot of time talking to reporters, which is interesting. They run the spectrum from skeptical ("Citizen dentistry? Ha-Ha!") to fired up about the potential for citizen news. I just helped Trisha Baptie (one of the sex trade workers covering the Pickton trial) carry a computer I managed to find for her out to a friend's van, after her old one packed it in. It's a multi-tasking life, but it's fun.

10) What is the source of your greatest frustration?

Sullivan: Not having enough time and money. Isn't that everyone's? I also get the feeling that many people dismiss this as an Internet play...we're here to help empower people who have not had a voice to gain a voice, and I'm not sure we're getting that message out. I don't like preaching, but perhaps I should be proselytizing on behalf of citizen journalism more assertively.

11) What are your plans for future of Orato?

Sullivan: We are planning to update the site and add video and audio-based correspondents' reports early this summer. We want our correspondents to be able to use all the tools the web offers. With further investment, we want to offer services to our correspondents that, if they choose, will allow them to earn money from their work -- e.g. syndication.

12) Anything else you would like to tell us about your Citizen Journalism site?

Sullivan: I spent 30 years as a gatekeeper...now it's nice to be a facilitator, and to me, that's what's so meaningful about Orato -- helping other people participate in public discourse and add a new perspective to the array of information available today. Stories, voices, locations, ideas that aren't featured in the mainstream media. But let me add that we are backstopped by the mainstream, professional journalist. We are able to exist because there is a vibrant free press in North America. We should never forget that -- we're complementary.

Thank you, Paul Sullivan, for taking the time to answer our questions.