NBC News and Citi Announce New Book: Operation Money: A Financial Guide for Military Service Members and Families

Free E-Book for Military Families by NBC’s TODAY 

Financial Editor Jean Chatzky Available Now

Chatzky Gives Practical and Useful Tips On Saving, Spending and Planning

NEW YORK, NY— October 21, 2014 — NBC News and Citi on Tuesday announced the release of Operation Money: A Financial Guide for Military Service Members and Families, a free e-book for veterans and their families by Jean Chatzky, bestselling author and financial editor of NBC’s TODAY.

The e-book addresses the financial impact from deployments and regular relocations, as well as how to make the most of military benefits. It features actionable advice, including a step-by-step guide to reducing debt, information on the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and tips on military service clauses in lease contracts.

Operation Money: A Financial Guide for Military Service Members and Families is now available for iPad, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and various Android devices. This free resource can be read online at http://www.operationmoneybook.com or downloaded from online retailers, including Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and iTunes.

Many military families struggle to find affordable childcare and housing or save for the future. Today, 65% of military families say they experience stress when it comes to their finances, according to Blue Star Families. The e-book – with chapters including “Budgeting Boot Camp,” “Homeownership,” “Cars,” “Protecting Your Family,” and “Finance for Caregivers” – offers financial management strategies specifically tailored for military families and veterans.

“When it comes to their finances military families experience stresses that are different – and often more severe – than other families,” said Jean Chatzky.  “I’m delighted to have been able to work with NBC News and Citi to provide them with a free resource to lead them in the right direction.”

Citi is committed to advancing financial education and employment opportunities in the veterans community. Citi’s support for Operation Money complements the work of Citi Salutes, a company-wide initiative, led by Citi Community Development with employees across the firm, which supports servicemembers and their families through career development opportunities, banking services, and partnerships with leading veterans organizations. 

“With Citi Salutes, we address the financial capability challenges servicemembers may face, and work with partners to develop solutions for the various stages, from deployment to civilian employment,” said Bob Annibale, Global Director of Citi Community Development. “We are pleased to support Operation Money as a widely available and free e-book, and we will continue to stand behind our military veterans and their families.”

"The financial aspect of transitioning out of the military and into a new job or career is one of the most difficult and complicated aspects facing our service men and women. It is Citi's hope that this book will help military families make the transition with the least amount of disruption,” said Suni Harford, Managing Director and Head of North America Markets at Citi.

This is NBC News and Citi’s second e-book project, following the publication of Heroes Get Hired: How to Use Your Military Experience to Master the Interview, which is available for download at http://www.heroesgethired.com. The e-book was produced with the support of Blue Star Families, Military Spouse Corporate career network, Corporate America Supports You, and Veterans Plus.

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About NBC News
NBC News is a global leader in news across all broadcast and digital platforms. Its leading and award-winning television news broadcasts include NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, TODAY, Meet the Press and Dateline, as well as primetime specials and breaking news reports. The rapidly-growing NBC News Digital Group, along with the well-established NBC News Radio with 750 stations nationwide, provide continuous content to consumers wherever they are, whenever they want it. NBC News also operates Peacock Productions, an award-winning in-house production company, and the NBC NewsChannel affiliate news service. NBC News is part of the NBCUniversal News Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast Corporation.

About Citi

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

Media Contacts:
Farrin Jay
(212) 664-4825
farrin.jay@nbcuni.com

Kamran Mumtaz
(212) 793-7682
kamran.mumtaz @citi.com

NBCUniversal's “The More You Know” Unveils Interactive eBook, Growing Up Online, In Collaboration with NBC News

eBook featuring NBC News Journalists Provides Internet Safety Tips for Parents, Teachers and Kids in Spanish and English

NEW YORK, June 10, 2013 – In support of National Internet Safety Month in June, NBCUniversal’s The More You Know, in collaboration with NBC News, has launched Growing Up Online, a free, interactive eBook for parents, teachers and kids about digital literacy and Internet safety.  The first release from The More You Know Learning Series, Growing Up Online offers informative, media-rich tools to help parents in discussions with their children about using technology responsibly and safely, as well as entertaining video comic books focused on real-life situations that might arise when kids go online. The eBook features NBC News journalists including Brian Williams, Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker and Dr. Nancy Snyderman speaking about the importance of keeping kids safe online.

Growing Up Online is available as a free download on Apple’s iBookstore for iPad and iPad Mini, Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, Kobo, as well as online for desktop and laptop viewing at www.themoreyouknow.com.

“When 52% of children have access to a mobile device and one in three kids has experienced cyberbullying, we are proud to provide resources and tools so that people can address the pressing issue of how to navigate the digital world securely,” said Beth Colleton, NBCUniversal Senior Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility.

In collaboration with leading experts from Common Sense Media and NetSmartz Workshop (an education program of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children),Growing Up Online addresses the increasing concern around kids’ online privacy issues and cyberbullying in a unique way.

“We all have a part to play to ensure that our kids are navigating the digital world safely and responsibly” said Jim Steyer, CEO and Founder, Common Sense Media. “The eBook content is relevant and practical, and it's organized to encourage conversations between parents and kids. With the right tools and guidance, every kid can thrive with media and technology."

The eBook will soon be made available for Google Play for Android devices along with Spanish language editions releasing to all of these retailers in the coming weeks.

"Our goal in teaching Internet safety is to empower families and their children to make smarter and safer decisions when they are online," said National Center for Missing & Exploited Children CEO, John Ryan. "Education is critical and this free resource teaches families how they can enjoy the benefits of the Internet while avoiding some of the risks."

To download Growing Up Online and learn about digital safety and internet security, visit http://www.themoreyouknow.com/ebooks/ and start a conversation with your kids.

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About "The More You Know"

For more than two decades, NBCUniversal’s Emmy award-winning The More You Know public service campaign has given viewers easy-to-use, concrete, manageable steps to help set realistic change in motion. This multi-platform campaign, through its public service announcements, digital content, programming and community outreach efforts and The More You Know Learning Series eBooks, focuses on some of the country’s most important social issues in the core areas of education, diversity, health and the environment. The More You Know partners with leading nonprofits and government agencies to ensure we deliver the most credible, useful, timely information possible.

For more information contact:

Amanda Collins
(212) 664-4732

Amanda.Collins@nbcuni.com

“Election Night” - New eBook Available From NBC Publishing

NEW YORK, NY – November 5, 2012 – On the eve of the election, NBC Publishing announces the release of Election Night: A Television History by media journalist Stephen Battaglio. As seen on NBC’s TODAY show, the book is a fascinating and revealing look at the evolution of U.S. presidential election night broadcasts since 1948 and how this televised event continues to galvanize the nation every four years.

Battaglio explores the technical advancements in vote counting, the aggregation of live coverage from the field, the compilation of polling information, the process of calling a state for a candidate, and how the drama ultimately unfolds in the energetic control room. Through the lens of NBC News, Election Night highlights commentary by legendary news figures such as Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, John Chancellor, Tom Brokaw, Tim Russert, and Brian Williams and many iconic moments that have made history.

Drawing from the extensive assets of the NBC News Archives, Battaglio takes his readers through each of the sixteen presidential races since the dawn of television beginning with Truman vs. Dewey in 1948 to today. The enhanced edition contains more than an hour of video from the archives of NBC News featuring some of television's most memorable appearances by major political figures in U.S. history including Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Barack Obama among many others.

With engaging anecdotes from industry professionals, photographs, and memorabilia from each political campaign, Election Night provides a "behind-the-scenes" account of the political campaigns and network coverage giving readers unprecedented inside access to history in the making.

NBC Publishing will release a free chapter featuring Battaglio’s soon-to-be-written coverage of the upcoming 2012 election during the month of November.

Election Night: A Television History is a must read for history buffs, political junkies, and television enthusiasts everywhere. Both enhanced and non-enhanced versions will be available for purchase wherever eBooks are sold.

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About the Author

Stephen Battaglio is the business editor for TV Guide Magazine. He has also written about the television industry for The New York Times, Fortune, the New York Daily News and The Hollywood Reporter. He is the author of David Susskind: A Televised Life the 2010 biography of the influential talk show host and TV producer. In 2011, he wrote From Yesterday to Today:  a pictorial history of the first 60 years of NBC's Today. Battaglio has appeared as a media commentator on numerous TV and radio programs including CBS Sunday Morning, NBC Nightly News, Entertainment Tonight, NPR's Morning Edition, NBC's Today, ABC's Good Morning America, MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, WOR's The Joan Hamburg Show and Inside Edition. He was also featured as a television historian in Pioneers of Thirteen, a 2012 TV documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of WNET. He lives in New York City.

About NBC Publishing

NBC Publishing is a division of NBCUniversal Media, LLC that focuses on developing digital publishing projects from content created within the NBCUniversal and Comcast family of properties, as well as publishing original works with outside authors and publishing partners. http://www.nbcpublishing.com

For more information contact:

Marie Wicht

NBC News

e: marie.wicht@nbcuni.com

JFK: 50 Days: The Legacy of an App

Originally appeared on Digital Book World

A few weeks ago my company, The Perseus Books Group, released an app for the iPad called JFK: 50 Days. It's meant to be a companion product to a large coffee-table book called JFK: Day by Day (Running Press), which covers the 1,036 days John F. Kennedy was President. We describe it as a companion because the app is focused on fifty select moments from the book to mark the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's election to the White House.

But what's in the app that's not in the book is more than an hour's worth of incredible video, most of which is rare footage culled from the archives of NBC News, featuring JFK, Jackie, and other members of the Kennedy family during the early 60s. Thanks to the technology of the iPad, we're confident the experience of both viewing and reading about these historical moments is truly gratifying.

So how did this all come about? Well, during a meeting with the folks at NBC News it was brought to our attention there were tons and tons of Kennedy footage in the vaults and they suggested we do a project together relating to our book. Naturally we loved this idea and immediately got to work. The first thing we needed to do was figure out just what this should be because digital projects featuring video and images are always a challenge due to the amount of file size these assets use. As a guide, we turned to the print version of the book, which is fully designed and has a particular look. Since this was going to be a companion product, we determined an app was the logical format because it would allow us to essentially keep the same design while maintaining a similar layout.

With that decision behind us, we forged ahead spending hours and hours viewing old clips in the NBC News archives division located at Rockefeller Center. It took about a full month to complete and as the lead producer of this project, I can honestly say it was quite an amazing experience and absolute privilege for our team to have been given the chance to take this unfiltered trip through history.

While all this was taking place we approached Vook about working together to program the app using Adobe's Digital Publishing Suite, since they were chosen by Adobe as a BETA tester for this new platform. If you've downloaded Wired or The New Yorker apps for iPad, which also uses this software, then the various ways to navigate JFK: 50 Days would be familiar to you. We felt it was the best option to present the fifty days in chronological order and as far as I know, this is the first book-related app using this approach. Here's a video example courtesy of NBC.

The structure of the "50 days" helped keep us focused since there was so much archival footage to watch. Even after we made our final selections there were still a number of choice moments that we just felt could not be left out of the app. So we decided to represent those pieces in montage form, which appear at the end of the app as bonus features. These montages are probably my favorite part of this project because they challenged us to string together unique pieces of forgotten history in a way that captured the essence and emotion of those moments in time.

I really hope readers come to appreciate the quality of the video because all the archived footage presented in JFK: 50 Days was painstakingly restored to deliver visuals with striking contrast and great sound. Believe me, this is not easy to do when working with film that's fifty years-old! But I feel the time, effort, and care we put into the clips really shows.

JFK: 50 Days was officially launched on November 15th with a segment on The Today Show. About a week later, David Gregory, moderator of Meet the Press, (who was kind enough to film the introduction for the app), agreed to promote it at the end of his program. There's also a terrific TV commercial airing on NBC to raise awareness in the marketplace. As you might imagine, all this has been simply fantastic to see and everyone who has been a part of this project is thrilled by NBC's support.

I'm happy to report JFK: 50 Days was #1 in the Books category of the App Store for two weeks and reached as high as #14 in paid apps overall. With the 50th anniversary of JFK's inauguration speech coming this January we're gearing up for another wave of promotions. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you have an iPad, you can get the JFK: 50 Days app here.