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USA Edition | Today Is Tuesday, May 21, 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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As the Commission has found in its prior work, debt collectors who have insufficient information may approach the wrong consumers, try to collect the wrong amount, or both. The report, titled The Structure and Practices of the Debt Buying Industry, found there is room for improvement in the information debt buyers have when they contact consumers and try to collect.
Washington
The First Of Its Kind, FTC Study Shines A Light On The Debt Buying Industry, Finds Consumers Would Benefit From Use Of Better Data In Debt Collection
January 30, 2013
The Federal Trade Commission today announced the results of the first empirical study of debt buyers – companies that are in the business of buying consumer debts and trying to collect on them.
As the Commission has found in its prior work, debt collectors who have insufficient information may approach the wrong consumers, try to collect the wrong amount, or both. The report, titled The Structure and Practices of the Debt Buying Industry, found there is room for improvement in the information debt buyers have when they contact consumers and try to collect.
The study analyzed more than 5,000 portfolios of consumer debt containing nearly 90 million consumer accounts with a face value of $143 billion. By dollar amount, most of the debt studied (71 percent) was credit card debt, but the study also included mortgage, medical, utility, telecommunications, and other consumer debt. The study evaluated the types of information debt buyers received from creditors both at and after the time of purchase, as well as the contracts governing the relationship between debt buyers and creditors.
The report notes that debt buying plays an important role in consumer credit. Debt buyers paid pennies on the dollar (an average of about 4 cents, with older debt selling for less than newer debt) for the billions of dollars in debts they bought from creditors. The proceeds from these sales have helped to reduce creditors’ losses from lending money, allowing them to provide more credit at lower prices.
But, as the report points out, debt buying also raises significant consumer protection concerns: Consumers each year disputed an estimated one million or more debts that debt buyers attempted to collect. Prior FTC experience has found that consumers often dispute the amount of the debt or that they owe the debt at all. Debt buyers verified only about half of the disputed debts, which means that buyers either could not verify or did not attempt to verify about 500,000 debts each year.
The report also found that at the time of purchase, creditors provided debt buyers with some important information concerning debts, including the name, address, and telephone number, and social security number of the debtor; the creditor’s account number; the outstanding balance on the account; and the dates of account opening and last payment. Buyers, however, did not receive some key information about debts purchased, such as whether consumers previously disputed the debts or whether collectors previously verified the debts. Creditors also imposed limitations on the ability of debt buyers to obtain information and documents about accounts after sale. Most contracts between creditors and debt buyers stated that the creditors did not warrant that the information they provided to buyers about debts was accurate.
The report cites a need for further research. The study focused on nine of the nation’s largest debt buyers, which comprised more than 75 percent of the industry, and did not include data from any smaller debt buyers. The study also did not consider the practices debt buyers used when taking legal action against consumers, or the accuracy of the information debt buyers received and used to collect debts. Further research on these and other debt buyer topics would be beneficial to policymakers.
The Commission vote to issue the report was 4-0-1, with Commissioner Joshua D. Wright not participating.