Federal News Service
was founded in 1985 in response to an urgent and growing need for immediate
verbatim transcripts of government briefings, speeches, press conferences
and other newsmaker events to the many domestic and international news
bureaus in Washington, D. C. Quickly, FNS assumed a broader mandate and
began to transcribe Congressional hearings, National Press Club speeches,
and significant events such as conferences at Brookings Institution,
Carnegie Endowment and broadcast interviews with opinion leaders.
Government agencies,
news media bureaus, public affairs representatives and other Washington
opinion makers quickly grew to rely on FNS as their Window on Washington.
Shortly thereafter, FNS introduced its Washington Daybook, a schedule of
events occurring in Washington today, tomorrow and the next week or more.
FNS became nationally
prominent with its transcript coverage of the Iran-Contra hearings, which
became an "instant" paperback book distributed throughout bookstores
across the U.S. The demand for verbatim transcripts of more and more
congressional hearings increased, and FNS now produces transcripts of
most major hearings to its large database of clients within 24 hours - and
many are completed the day the hearing occurs!
FNS covered campaign
speeches, the key speeches at the nominating conventions and the candidate
debates in the 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections. The historic
Economic Conference conducted by President Clinton and Vice President
Al Gore in 1992 was transcribed verbatim and produced in hardback.
FNS set up its first
international office in Moscow in 1991 to offer foreign
embassies, the news media, and foreign business interests, verbatim
transcript services similar to those offered by FNS in the U.S. A Middle
East bureau was established in Jerusalem in 2002 to provide transcripts in
English of press conferences, briefings, statements and news interviews of
Israeli and Middle Eastern political leaders and spokespersons, major
political interviews on Israeli morning radio broadcasts of Reshet Bet
(Network B) and Galei Tzahal (Army Radio).
The FNS Translation
Department started in Moscow, translating just Russian to English and
vice versa. Today, the department offers translation in many languages
including Ukrainian, Georgian, Polish, Korean, Slovak, Portuguese, Japanese,
Chinese, Malay, Indonesian, and of course French, German and Spanish.
Recognizing that
our clients needed immediate notification of fast breaking news stories,
FNS has added two complementary media relations services to satisfy this
need - a national Broadcast News Monitoring Service and an electronic
media monitoring service called NewsClips Online. The FNS Broadcast News
Monitoring Service can provide clients with a daily report on what stories
were broadcast about them on network, local and cable news shows in more
than 100 markets, and can often provide the actual videotape news story
in a matter of hours. FNS NewsClips Online scans and indexes more than
5,000 media websites daily to provide our clients with stories about them
and their interests.
The FNS customer base,
which was originally composed of a small number of news media companies,
now includes most major U.S. and foreign newspapers and news services,
world-wide broadcast media, U.S. government agencies, foreign embassies,
U.S. embassies worldwide, corporations, lobbyists, universities and
associations.
Ian Gerrard, Chief Financial Officer, Tony Calkins, Vice President of Sales and the employees of Federal News Service, believe that there are substantial opportunities for more company growth through the development of new products and services and the establishment of new offices internationally.
The FNS transcribers are credited and acknowledged by the media and other
clients for their expert transcribing abilities and speed. The full time
technology professionals manage all technology issues, develop FNS software
programs, and provide customer service. The administrative, sales, and
production departments consist of many long-time dedicated employees
working towards future global expansion to benefit all customers.
