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USA Edition | Today Is Saturday, May 18, 2013 |
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Welcome To Newsroom Magazine
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Thanks To You We're Growing Faster Than Ever Before
Chances are you've noticed that Newsroom Magazine is a very different publication.
We care about journalism -- and we're well aware many other organizations do it far better than we.
Our editorial standards, rules of custody, and skeptical editing for everything we produce, disseminate or expose to public viewing reflects a seriousness of purpose.
Six years after our founding, Newsroom Magazine continues to evolve the online publishing and preservation model we pioneered.
There is good news to share: Newsroom Magazine is is thriving.
And some less good news: Our limited resources, both journalistically and financially, are limiting our expansion of content.
Online News Preservation
In the six years since its founding, Newsroom Magazine has extended the field of news publishing into previously uncharted areas.
We take a long range view of news -- one that considers both timeliness and historical merit.
What we do, and how we do it, was not possible in the print media era -- for our content is both timely and timeless in the sense that we share the power of immediacy with all online media plus the perseverance of an encyclopedia.
Newsroom Magazine's publishing model goes beyond immediacy -- for unlike the newspaper era -- what we publish is permanently preserved. And tagged, indexed, and constantly updated by automated sitemap sharing with Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, Sogou, Ewatch, Alexa, Facebook, and others at home and far away.
All of our content, is meant to be preserved. Thanks to the capture and storage of our content at Google, including all updates and changes, and full collection archiving by the U.S. Internet Archives, everything we say, write, opine -- whether wise, foolish, or inconsequential-- is preserved.
Newsroom Magazine content remains forever online, searchable and accessible 24 hours a day worldwide.
What's Hot Is Rarely What Matters
What we publish today is rarely as timely as the more traditional publications and online newspapers. What we choose to publish, sometimes days or months after a story first breaks, or on a subject neglected by most commercial media, is chosen to reflect one aspect of an ongoing reality for long term preservation.
From a handful of English-only readers when we published our first article -- the 1958 Edward R. Murrow speech before the Radio Television Directors Association in Chicago -- we have grown and wizened about our responsibilities to our readers and our own limitations and shortfalls.
Our most read article so far this year, The Adventures Of Bernie In Wonderland, was published November 23rd, 2009. The article consists of the unexpurgated SEC interview of Harry Markopolos in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi swindle case. It is not very interesting reading and it is very long -- but we published it in the belief that what it revealed was important and unlikely to remain online in its original format.
Newsroom Magazine's Storehouse Grows Every Day
The number of publications who devote themselves to publishing credible, responsible and probative content for posterity has dwindled.
Today Newsroom Magazine publishes a storehouse of credible, probative and relevant content -- well over 5000 articles including commentaries, essays, definitions, photographs, stories, reviews, discussions, tutorials, and logical explanations.
Our readership is nearly three times was it was only last year. Few might come to our content for entertainment -- for our purpose is otherwise.
If You Publish, They Will Come
We are read on Capitol Hill, along K Street, and in the halls of government inside the beltway and around the world.
We are read daily on college campuses at home and abroad. We're visited from military ships at sea. We serve law-firms, major corporations, Wall Street the UK Parliament, state governments and cities with credible useful information.
Some of the world's most prestigious news organizations use Newsroom Magazine for fact-checking.
Government Information Unfiltered, Sometimes Imperfect
The amount of official news proffered each day by government, whether at home or abroad, is accelerating. Some of it newsworthy, most of it not.
Our job is to thoughtfully choose what's worthy of the attention of our readers.
About 1% of government issued news we receive each day qualifies as newsworthy. Only the most relevant, or reflective of government at its best, or at its worst, or evidence of overreach, or ineptitude makes it newsworthy.
We leave the issue of deciding which if any of these qualifications applies to what we publish up to the reader.
Formatted For People On The Go, Or On The Hunt
All of our government news content includes above the headline call out meant to convey the principal facts, action or information for those with little time to read a long document.
Our job is to carefully and skeptically choose relevant governmental content for our readers -- and to include the unexpurgated original source material, whose chain of custody we control.
Online Editorial Standards, Ethics And Purpose
Our commitment to time-honored journalistic standards and a clear statement about the ethics to which we agree to be held today and tomorrow, Newsroom Magazine began publication when the Internet was young -- 2006.
Our prime mission then, as now, is to publish non political ideas, definitions, essays and editorials.
To speak to the state of this honorable calling.
And to inform the public about those things, events and ideas that matter most to us all.
Today, tomorrow, forever.
Editorial Standards & Policies
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The oil spill was catastrophic for the environment, but by hiding its severity BP also harmed another constituency — its own shareholders and the investing public who are entitled to transparency, accuracy, and completeness of company information, particularly in times of crisis. Good corporate citizenship and responsible crisis management means that a company can’t hide critical information simply because it fears the backlash.
Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement
Washington
BP To Pay $525 Million Penalty To Settle SEC Charges Of Securities Fraud During Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Washington, D.C., Nov. 15, 2012 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged BP p.l.c. with misleading investors while its Deepwater Horizon oil rig was gushing into the Gulf of Mexico by significantly understating the flow rate in multiple reports filed with the SEC.
The SEC alleges that the global oil and gas company headquartered in London made fraudulent public statements indicating a flow rate estimate of 5,000 barrels of oil per day. BP reported this figure despite its own internal data indicating that potential flow rates could be as high as 146,000 barrels of oil per day. BP executives also made numerous public statements after the filings were made in which they stood behind the flow rate estimate of 5,000 barrels of oil per day even though they had internal data indicating otherwise. In fact, they criticized other much higher estimates by third parties as scaremongering. Months later, a government task force determined the flow rate estimate was actually more than 10 times higher at 52,700 to 62,200 barrels of oil per day, yet BP never corrected or updated the misrepresentations and omissions it made in SEC filings for investors.
BP agreed to settle the SEC’s charges by paying the third-largest penalty in agency history at $525 million. The SEC plans to establish a Fair Fund with the BP penalty to provide harmed investors with compensation for losses they sustained in the fraud. The SEC announced the case today along with the Attorney General and other senior officials at the Justice Department, which brought a criminal action against BP.
“The oil spill was catastrophic for the environment, but by hiding its severity BP also harmed another constituency – its own shareholders and the investing public who are entitled to transparency, accuracy, and completeness of company information, particularly in times of crisis,” said Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “Good corporate citizenship and responsible crisis management means that a company can’t hide critical information simply because it fears the backlash.”
Daniel M. Hawke, Director of the SEC’s Philadelphia Regional Office and Chief of the Enforcement Division’s Market Abuse Unit, said, “Without accurate critical flow rate data known only to BP, the company denied its shareholders and investors the opportunity to fairly assess BP’s potential liabilities and true financial condition.”
According to the SEC’s complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, BP stated that the flow rate was estimated to be 5,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) in three separate Forms 6-K filed with the SEC following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion on April 20, 2010. In a 6-K filed on April 29, BP stated in part, “[e]fforts continue to stem the flow of oil from the well, currently estimated at up to 5,000 bopd[.]” BP filed another report the next day similarly referencing “[e]fforts to stem the flow from the well, currently estimated at up to 5,000 barrels a day are continuing[.]”
The SEC alleges that when the company made those statements, BP possessed at least five different flow rate calculations, estimates, or data indicating a much higher flow rate. BP did not possess or generate any piece of data suggesting that 5,000 bopd represented a ceiling for the rate of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico or was the best estimate. The failure to disclose the existence of these higher estimates rendered BP’s statements in its Reports on Form 6-K materially false and misleading.
According to the SEC’s complaint, BP issued another 6-K on May 4 that stated, “Accurate estimation of the rate of flow is difficult, but current estimates by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) suggest that some 5,000 barrels (210,000 US gallons) of oil per day are escaping from the well.”
The SEC alleges that BP omitted from its disclosure the material fact that, by this date, it possessed at least six estimates, calculations and data indicating that the oil flow rate far exceeded 5,000 bopd. Therefore, it was no longer accurate to suggest that 5,000 bopd was the best estimate or that the NOAA estimate was the current estimate.
The SEC’s complaint further alleges that BP executives made numerous public statements in May 2010 supporting the 5,000 bopd flow rate estimate and criticizing other estimates despite internal evidence showing that flow rates were likely well in excess of 5,000 bopd. Eventually on August 2, the Flow Rate Technical Group consisting of government and academic experts tasked with reaching a final official flow rate estimate announced that the flow rate estimate was 52,700 to 62,200 bopd. BP never corrected or updated its material misrepresentations and omissions about the flow rate.
BP has consented to the entry of a final judgment ordering it to pay the $525 million penalty and permanently restraining and enjoining the company from violating Sections 10(b) and 13(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 10b-5, 12b-20 and 13a-16. The proposed final judgment is subject to court approval.
The SEC’s investigation, which is continuing, has been conducted by Brian P. Thomas, Matthew S. Raalf, Kelly L. Gibson, Michael F. McGraw, John S. Rymas, Colleen K. Lynch, Jeffrey Boujoukos, Michael J. Rinaldi, and Elaine C. Greenberg in the Philadelphia Regional Office. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the Department of Justice’s Deepwater Horizon Task Force and the United Kingdom Financial Services Authority.