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USA Edition | Today Is Thursday, May 23, 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
After breaking into the vehicles and stealing purses to obtain check books, driver licenses, and other means of identification, the defendants would then forge high, face-value checks from one victim’s bank account made payable to another victim and then travel to branches of the payee victim’s bank that had drive-through teller lanes.
Washington
Interstate Identity Theft Ringleader Sentenced To Almost 10 Years In Federal Prison
January 31, 2013
GRAND RAPIDS, MI—Marcus Montell Thames, 32, of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was sentenced to serve nine years and seven months in federal prison for his leading role in an interstate identity theft conspiracy that was based out of Florida, but whose members traveled throughout the Southeast and Upper Midwest committing bank fraud and identity theft during 2010 and 2011. The scheme involved eight charged defendants, all of whom have since been convicted of felonies including conspiracy to commit identity theft and bank fraud; bank fraud; and aggravated identity theft.
The scheme involved the defendants, travelling in teams controlled by Thames, going to locations such as gyms, daycare centers, and other places where they hoped to find purses that had been left in vehicles. After breaking into the vehicles and stealing purses to obtain check books, driver licenses, and other means of identification, the defendants would then forge high, face-value checks from one victim’s bank account made payable to another victim and then travel to branches of the payee victim’s bank that had drive-through teller lanes. There, female fraud-team members wearing basic disguises would cash the forged checks from the lane farthest from the teller window, presenting that victim’s stolen means of identification as proof of identity. The fast-moving and wide-ranging scheme, dubbed “Felony Lane” by the law-enforcement agencies that investigated it, victimized significant numbers of private citizens and federally-insured financial institutions in states that included Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.
The investigation of Thames and his accomplices began with a February 2011 arrest by the Blackmon Township Police Department of defendant Wendy S. Bailey, 44, of Saginaw, Michigan, after she attempted to cash a forged check while on a trip with Thames and others. After initial investigation by Blackmon Township developed evidence that Bailey was part of an interstate fraud ring, the Lansing Resident Agency of the FBI joined the investigation. From there, the investigation grew to include participation by the Meridian Township Police Department, the Michigan State Police, and numerous other law-enforcement agencies in communities outside of Michigan through which the fraud teams had passed.
The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Janet T. Neff, who commented on the seriousness of identity theft in general, and on the aggravated character of this scheme in particular given its geographic reach, the number of victims over time, and the financial and psychic harms it caused.
Other defendants received the following sentences: Peter P. Simone, 50, of Davie, Florida, who was convicted following a jury trial in October 2011, received a sentence of six years in prison; Jarod L. Jackson, 29, of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was sentenced to 41 months in prison; Lucious L. Felder, 23, of Ft. Lauderdale, was sentenced to 30 months in prison; Carlton L. Brown, 24, of Ft. Lauderdale, was sentenced to 18 months in prison; Kimberly L, Kirkby, 52, of Florence, Alabama, was sentenced to 12 months in prison; and Wendy S. Bailey, 44, of Saginaw, Michigan, received a sentence of time-served, or approximately three months. Erica S. Robinson, 29, of Smyrna, Georgia, is pending sentencing on February 19, 2013. She is presently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. All of the sentences were imposed by U.S. District Judge Neff, who also presided over the Simone trial.
Commenting on the sentences, U.S. Attorney Patrick A. Miles, Jr. stated, “Identity theft is a particularly pernicious form of property crime because it involves more than simply stealing money, it involves stealing the peace of mind of victims and, sometimes, harming their reputations and their credit-worthiness. For that reason, my office will continue to aggressively pursue identity thieves—particularly those who mistakenly believe that they can escape accountability if they just keep moving quickly enough from county to county or from state to state.”
Robert D. Foley, III, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Detroit Division, stated, “Those individuals who engage in identity theft and other crimes as part of a ring are robbing citizens of their money and their piece of mind. The FBI is committed to pursuing and prosecuting these criminals for these illegal acts.”
The Lansing Resident Agency of the FBI was the lead investigating agency in the case. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagen W. Frank, who serves as the principal of the Identity Theft and Cybercrime Task-Force of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.