 |
USA Edition | Today Is Wednesday, May 22, 2013 |
|---|
Welcome To Newsroom Magazine
|
|---|
|
|
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
| Browsing Materials Tagged Telemarketing Sales Rule | Organized In Date Order | [ 8 items ] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Item | Earlier | Middle Item | Last Item | ||
At the FTC’s request, a federal district court in Arizona has temporarily shut down the operation, known as National Card Monitor, LLC, which charged consumers up to $599 up-front to supposedly secure a new low-rate credit card on their behalf.At the FTC’s request, a federal district court in Arizona has temporarily shut down the operation, known as National Card Monitor, LLC, which charged consumers up to $599 up-front to supposedly secure a new low-rate credit card on their behalf.
Washington
FTC Shuts Down Another Credit Card Interest Rate Reduction Scheme
Case is Sixth Advance-Fee Telemarketing Complaint Filed in Just Over a Month
December 13, 2012
For the sixth time in just over a month, the Federal Trade Commission shut down a scheme, pending trial, that allegedly tricked consumers into paying hundreds of dollars based on bogus promises of lower credit card interest rates.
At the FTC’s request, a federal district court in Arizona has temporarily shut down the operation, known as National Card Monitor, LLC, which charged consumers up to $599 up-front to supposedly secure a new low-rate credit card on their behalf.
According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants sought out consumers seeking relief from high credit card interest rates. In the scheme, telemarketers working for National cold-called consumers and told them the company could reduce their credit card interest rates to as low as zero percent by obtaining new lower-rate cards on their behalf, onto which they could transfer existing balances. Consumers who accepted the offer were required to pay an advance fee, typically ranging from $499 to $599. National also claimed it had a 100 percent money-back guarantee, and that consumers who did not get the promised cards would receive a full refund.
After paying the fee, however, most consumers found out that National failed to deliver on its promise to secure a new credit card on their behalf, and that getting a “guaranteed” refund of their payment was very difficult, the FTC alleged. The agency’s complaint also alleges National called consumers whose numbers are on the Do Not Call Registry and never paid the fees required to access registered phone numbers in the area codes its telemarketers call.
The FTC charged National with violating the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule by misrepresenting or making unsubstantiated claims that consumers who bought its credit card interest rate reduction services would receive a new low-interest rate credit card and that it would provide full refunds to anyone who did not. Other charges included calling consumers on the Do Not Call Registry, failing to pay Registry fees, and requesting or receiving an advance fee for a credit card via telemarketing.
Today’s case follows the November 1, 2012, announcement of an FTC-led joint enforcement effort against five companies that allegedly made deceptive “cardholder services” robocalls. That announcement, which included cases brought by state partners in Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida, came just weeks after the FTC held a summit in Washington, DC, to examine the robocall problem and announced a $50,000 cash prize for the best technical solution to block illegal robocalls on landlines and mobile phones.
The Commission vote to issue the complaint was 5-0. It was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona and names as defendants National Card Monitor LLC, also doing business as Nationwide Card Monitor, and James Eric Cox.
The FTC would like to thank the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; the Mesa, Arizona, Police Department; the Arizona Attorney General’s Office; and the Better Business Bureaus of Central, Northern, and Western Arizona for their help in bringing this case.
Information for Consumers
The FTC has information for consumers on advance-fee schemes. One consumer alert provides information on how consumers can identify and protect themselves from such fraud, and a second explains what consumers should do if they get prerecorded telemarketing calls pitching advance-fee products.
If you want to reduce the interest rate you’re paying on your credit card purchases, your best bet is to handle it yourself for free: call the customer service phone number on the back of your credit card and ask for a reduced rate. Be calm, patient, and persistent. And if you are tempted by the promises in a rate reduction robocall, hold off — and hang up. Also:
- Don’t give out your credit card information. Once a scammer has your data, they can charge your credit card for their own purchases or sell the information to other scammers.
- Don’t share other personal financial or sensitive information like your bank account or Social Security numbers. Scam artists often ask for this information during an unsolicited sales pitch, and then use it to commit other frauds against you.
- Be skeptical of any unsolicited sales calls that are prerecorded, especially if your phone number is on the Do Not Call Registry. You shouldn’t get recorded sales pitches unless you have specifically agreed to accept such calls, with a few exceptions. See New Rules for Robocalls at ftc.gov/phonefraud.
- If your number is on the National Do Not Call Registry, a telemarketer may call you only if you have agreed to accept calls from the company the salesperson works for, if you have bought something from the company within the last 18 months, or if you have asked the company for information within the last three months.