After having turned a small profit for three years, OhmyNews slid into the red in 2006. It faces growing competition in South Korea, has failed to catch fire beyond its borders and, most important, has lost its luster as the must-read, latest new thing.

In an effort to get back on track, the privately owned company is planning an ambitious relaunch in late May -- dubbed OhmyNews 2.0 -- that seeks to double the number of citizen journalists in South Korea, to 100,000 over the next three years.

Softbank, a Japanese conglomerate, has invested $11 million to beef up its video news capabilities, upgrade its Web site and start a separate edition of OhmyNews in Japan.

Its efforts to stay in front come at a time when new ventures in citizen journalism -- including many in the Bay Area -- are exploding as online ventures and old-line media alike are embracing "user-generated" content.

"No matter if they are Korean or Japanese or American, human beings have the same instinct ... which is a natural desire for letting other people know what they have found out," said Oh Yeon Ho, the site's charismatic founder and publisher.

But, he added, OhmyNews, like other media, old and new, depends on advertising and content sales, and now must seek to expand those revenue streams and find new ones.

At OhmyNews' office, which occupies two floors of a small building in downtown Seoul, 65 professional editors, reporters and video journalists vet hundreds of stories submitted daily by the 43,000 citizen journalists in South Korea.

About a third are spiked -- because of unverified facts, inappropriate topics or hints of slander. Rejected stories get a second chance if the writers agree to take a writing clinic and learn how to rework a story.

"We try to give preference to a new name if there are multiple articles on the same subject, so that people get the chance to hear many different new voices," said Lee Han Ki, the site's managing editor.

OhmyNews publishes about 150 stories each day, up to a third of which come from the professional staff and the rest from citizens. Readers can offer instant feedback online and monetary tips. The site attracts up to 800,000 unique visitors and up to 2 million page views a day.

Citizen and professional journalists often work in tandem. For example, a staff reporter might write about a complex trade deal, with several citizens offering first-person accounts of how the policy might affect them.

These volunteers take pride in their contributions. Scribes such as Song Sung, who specializes in left-leaning pieces on topics such as how U.S. interference forced North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, underscore the public's disenchantment with the established press in South Korea -- and, possibly, elsewhere.

"Professional journalists work with a sense of belonging (to the media company), and hence tend to write articles that suit the particular newspaper's editorial leanings," said Song, 45, who moved from Seoul a decade ago with his wife and two sons to an abandoned farm. "Citizen journalists, on the other hand, can write articles that they want to write."

When reformer Roh Moo Hyun won South Korea's tight presidential race in 2002, he granted his first domestic interview to OhmyNews -- a slap at the more conservative daily papers that supported his rival. Roh also acknowledged the help he received from OhmyNews' citizen journalists whose stories were overwhelmingly favorable to him and helped drive voters to the polls.

Two years later, when his opponents tried to impeach him, OhmyNews again helped rally supporters and Roh remained in office.

This has led to accusations that OhmyNews has become overly cozy with the government,
"It's a political movement that took the form of the media," said Shin Gi Wook, director of Stanford University's Asia-Pacific Research Center. "I don't think OhmyNews was interested in presenting objective news to the people. It had a very clear political and ideological agenda."

Oh defended the site's coverage -- and a $10,000 subsidy OhmyNews has received from the government, saying that OhmyNews has criticized the president on certain issues, such South Korea's contribution to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

On the broader challenges facing his operation, Oh said he will be upgrading the quality and quantity of citizen-produced journalism.

He also sees OhmyNews' expansion into Japan as a key aspect of a much grander plan. "I want the OhmyNews model to go around the world, so the professional-centered journalism system becomes an interactive system between professional and citizen journalists," he said.

And while each country may find a model that fits its needs and culture best, he believes OhmyNews will be at the center of a worldwide network of citizen journalism.

"This is one of our dreams," he said.
E-mail Vanessa Hua at vhua@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle