{{Short description|Transcription services company}} '''Federal News Service''' ('''FNS''') is a Washington, D.C.–based company providing transcription services. FNS produces on-demand verbatim transcripts of newsworthy events in DC (including speeches, congressional hearings, and interviews) for its clients.<ref name="FNS">[http://cqrollcall.com/about-cq-roll-call/press-releases/cq-roll-call-acquires-federal-news-service/ "CQ Roll Call Acquires Federal News Service"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150724103838/http://cqrollcall.com/about-cq-roll-call/press-releases/cq-roll-call-acquires-federal-news-service/ |date=2015-07-24 }} (press release), CQ Roll Call (December 1, 2014).</ref> FNS "is one of the chief sources of transcripts from presidential appearances and Capitol Hill events".<ref name="DolanAcquire">[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/13/AR2010081305296.html "Dolan Co. acquires Federal News Service"], ''The Washington Post'' (August 16, 2010).</ref>
==History== FNS was incorporated in 1985.<ref name="FNS"/><ref name="1987Profile">[https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/27/us/washington-talk-federal-news-service-reporting-exactly-what-is-said.html "Washington Talk: Federal News Service; Reporting Exactly What Is Said"], ''The New York Times'' (July 27, 1987).</ref> Before the creation of FNS, many years "the only way to find out what exactly was said at a Washington hearing or briefing was to be there. Harried journalists, lawyers and Government staff workers dashed from session to session, then relied on scribbled notes and individual tape recordings to reconstruct what happened."<ref name="1987Profile"/> The creation of the Federal News Service filled a market niche; ''The New York Times''' wrote in 1987 that "this high-technology transcription company with a low public profile has quickly, and quietly, made itself indispensable to news organizations, many branches of Government and even foreign governments by covering news conferences, briefings and other sessions among Washington's comment mills: the press offices and public affairs offices of the departments of State and Defense, the White House, Congress and television talk shows."<ref name="1987Profile"/>
Im December 1995, the Federal Trade Commission approved a consent agreement with the Reuters America unit of Reuters Holdings P.L.C. and with Federal News Service Group Inc.<ref name="FTC">Associated Press, [https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/28/business/company-news-transcript-services-settle-charges-with-ftc.html Transcript Services Settle Charges with F.T.C.] (December 28, 1995).</ref> This agreement settled charges that the two firm, the United States' largest producers of verbatim transcripts, had an anti-competitive agreement.<ref name="FTC"/> Under the agreement, no party admitted any wrongdoing.<ref name="FTC"/>
In July 2009, FNS filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington against ''Congressional Quarterly'', as well as CQ's then-parent companies (the Times Publishing Company and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies), CQ's subsidiary CQ Transcriptions, and a CQ vendor, Morningside Partners.<ref name="Suit">Reuters, [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/business/media/03transcript.html "Transcript Service Sues Congressional Quarterly"] (July 2, 2009).</ref> FNS accused CQ of corporate espionage, alleging in court documents that CQ had paid a FSN employee to provide it with confidential business information and that CQ had used a customer password to access FNS transcripts.<ref name="Suit"/>
In August 2010, it was reported that FNS had been purchased by the Minnesota-based Dolan Company, a publisher of business journals and trade media.<ref name="FNS"/><ref name="DolanAcquire"/> Dolan purchased FNS from the trustee of the bankruptcy estate of FNS's former owner, Cheryl A. Reagan.<ref name="DolanAcquire"/>
On December 1, 2014, CQ Roll Call announced that it was acquiring FNS from Dolan for an undisclosed sum.<ref name="FNS"/><ref>Jeff Clabaugh, [http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2014/12/01/cq-roll-callacquires-transcript-firm-federal-news.html "CQ Roll Call acquires transcript firm Federal News Service"], ''Washington Business Journal'' (December 1, 2014).</ref> CQ Roll Call is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Economist Group and was formed from the merger of ''Congressional Quarterly'', ''Roll Call'', and Capitol Advantage.<ref>[http://cqrollcall.com/about-cq-roll-call/ "About CQ Roll Call"], CQ Roll Call.</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.fednews.com Official website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070125221321/http://www.fednews.com/ |date=2007-01-25 }}
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Category:Mass media companies based in Washington, D.C. Category:Mass media companies established in 1983 Category:American companies established in 1983 Category:1983 establishments in Washington, D.C.