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John Seidenberg's experience in journalism and professional writing (both in newspapers and newsletters) goes back to 1981 and includes work as a reporter, interviewer, news editor, copy editor, managing editor, newsletter founder, almanac profiler, and news radio broadcaster. Among the areas he's covered are federal government and postal employees, the mortgage and banking industries, consumer credit, telemedicine, industrial development financing, workers' compensation, federal and state courts, legal issues, Congress, state and local government, politics, and self-publishing.
John's first two reporting jobs were on small town newspapers with the word "Messenger" in the title: the weekly Messenger in Hillsboro, New Hampshire, and then the daily News Messenger in Montgomery County, Virginia, home to Virginia Tech. There he covered town and county government, the criminal court beat, local education, land planning issues, political campaigns, and feature news profiles. As a reporter, he interviewed or questioned former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, renowned portrait photographer Lotte Jacobi, Kennedy Presidential Library director David Powers, U.S. Sens. John Warner and Paul Trible of Virginia, and Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, Virginia Gov. Gerald Baliles, U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia, and Lynda Johnson Robb, wife of Virginia Gov. and Sen. Charles Robb and daughter of former President Lyndon Johnson. While with the News Messenger, John was a part-time news stringer for the Roanoke, Virginia bureau of United Press International.
In 1985, he made the switch to newsletters and has essentially remained in the field since. After a year as writer for Report on Development Financing, a little read Washington-based newsletter on projects financed using industrial revenue bonds, he moved to one of the giants in U.S. newsletters at the time: Phillips Publishing. As a senior editor in the banking newsletter group, John launched a new publication, Credit Risk Management Report, on assessment of credit risk and also was editor of it, as well as writing about the credit card and financial services industries. At Phillips, he received an editorial excellence award for analysis of cardholder fees as editor of Card News.
Next with a former Phillips colleague, John ventured out on his own and formed AJ Publishing, Inc. The small company published Healthcare Telecom Report, a biweekly newsletter on transmission of clinical and administrative health care data between medical providers, and Global Telemedicine Report, a monthly newsletter on telemedicine projects around the world. From there he founded his own company, Business Development Publications, Inc., and for five years wrote, edited, published, and marketed Credit Management and Marketplace News, a newsletter on the consumer credit granting business for financial institutions.
Subsequently, John sold that publication to Inside Mortgage Finance newsletters and worked there for a year as editor of Inside Second Mortgage Lending, a biweekly newsletter on second mortgages as an alternative revenue source for lenders. ISML reported on debt consolidation, home improvement loans, high loan-to-value lending, reverse mortgages, and home equity lines of credit.
John then joined the staff of a longtime D.C. area newsletter on federal government employees, Federal Employees News Digest. Going from lone reporter to managing editor, he was responsible for covering workplace, salary, legal, labor, and regulatory issues affecting federal workers. In addition, he wrote for and edited a second FEND publication, Federal Workers' Compensation Update, produced daily federal worker and U.S. Postal Service news briefs for the FEND Web site, and wrote and recorded weekly federal news reports for airing on Federal News Radio, the sister station of Washington's all-news WTOP Radio.
After FEND, making another publishing foray with a partner, John co-founded Federal Compensation Publications LLC, a company that published The Federal Workers' Compensation Connection, a monthly newsletter with news and guidance on workers' compensation in the federal government for program managers, specialists, practitioners and recipients, attorneys, and federal unions.
His other professional work includes editing news stories, professional reports, documents, contract proposals, and online content, as well as writing articles for professional association publications, fact checking for the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), writing press releases for the American Association of Blood Banks, and serving as a note taker for law enforcement technology contract review and funding meetings.
John has been a writer and project manager on a contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to rewrite Federal Housing Administration (FHA) policy handbooks for lenders and underwriters. In addition, he edited and reviewed feedback reports on applicants for the annual Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). He also was an editor on a project with the federal government to review and revise documents related to applications seeking liability protection for services and equipment approved as effective anti-terrorism technologies, and a copy editor with the Bureau of National Affairs, editing news copy for Daily Report for Executives, a BNA newsletter.
In addition, John was cited by name on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in November 1991, has been a yearly contributing writer for the Almanac of the Unelected, an annual directory containing profiles of senior level congressional committee staff, belongs to the National Press Club, Washington Independent Writers Group, and Baltimore-Washington Newspaper Guild, and has been listed in the National Directory of Who's Who in Executives and Professionals.