United Press International

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"UPI" redirects here. For other uses, see UPI (disambiguation).

United Press International (UPI) is a news agency headquartered in the United States with roots dating back to 1907. Once a mainstay in the newswire service along with Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, it began to decline as afternoon newspapers, its chief client category, began to fail with the rising popularity of television news. This decline accelerated after the sale of UPI by the founding Scripps family culminating in two bankruptcies.

In 2000, UPI was purchased by News World Communications, an international media company founded by Sun Myung Moon the leader of the Unification Church which publishes newspapers in South America, Africa, and Asia, and formerly published The Washington Times in Washington DC.[1][2] Shortly after this sale, UPI greatly downsized, eliminating many of its departments such as its Science Writing department. The news wire's daily coverage today includes domestic and international top news, business, entertainment, sports, science, health and "Quirks in the News" through its traditional NewsTrack newswire, as well as coverage and analysis of emerging threats, the security industry and energy resources through its "premium" service. UPI's content is presented in text, video and photo formats. Its news stories are filed in English, Spanish and Arabic. Readers on its Web site can also listen to the English- and Spanish-language news stories by clicking a small icon at the top of each article.

History

United Press Associations

Newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps (1854–1926) created the first chain of newspapers in the United States. After the Associated Press refused to sell its services to several of his papers, Scripps together with partner Milton A. McRae combined three regional news services (the Publisher's Press Association, Scripps McRae Press Association, and the Scripps News Association) into the United Press Associations, which began service on June 21, 1907. Scripps founded United Press on the principle that there should be no restrictions on who could buy news from a news service. William Randolph Hearst entered the fray in 1909 when he founded International News Service.

The AP was owned by its newspaper members, who could simply decline to serve the competition. Scripps had refused to become a member of AP, calling it a "monopoly, pure and simple" and declaring it was "impossible for any new paper to be started in any of the cities where there were AP members." (AP appeared in 1848, when six New York City newspapers formed a cooperative to gather and share telegraph news, but the name Associated Press did not come into general use until the 1860s.)

Scripps believed that there should be no restrictions on who could buy news from a news service and he made UP available to anyone, including his competitors. He later said: "I regard my life's greatest service to the people of this country to be the creation of the United Press."[citation needed]

Creating UPI

Frank Bartholomew, UPI's last reporter-president, took over in 1955, obsessed with bringing Hearst's International News Service (INS) into UP. He put the "I" in UPI on May 24, 1958, when UP and INS merged to become United Press International. Hearst, who owned King Features Syndicate, received a small share of the merged company. Lawyers on both sides worried about anti-trust problems if King competitor United Features Syndicate remained a part of the newly merged company, so it was made a separate Scripps company, which deprived UPI of a persuasive sales tool and the money generated by Charles M. Schulz' popular Peanuts and other comic strips.

The new UPI had 6,000 employees and 5,000 subscribers, 1,000 of them newspapers. Later that year, it launched the UPI Audio Network, the first wire service radio network. In 1960, subsidiaries included UFS, United Press Movietone, a television film service that was operated jointly with 20th Century Fox, the British United Press and Ocean Press.

UPI's motto, which gave the organization credibility to both the reading public and those in the news business was "Get It Fast, Get It Right, Keep It Simple."

UPI purchased by the Unification Church

United Press International building in Washington D.C.

UPI was purchased in 2000 by Sun Myung Moon's global media conglomerate News World Communications, which also owns the Washington Times and newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America, becoming an addition to the Unification Church media portfolio. After 57 years with UPI, its best-known reporter Helen Thomas resigned her position as UPI's chief White House correspondent in May 2000, the day after it was acquired by News World.[3] Since the resignation of Thomas, UPI for the first time does not have a reporter in the White House press corps.[4]

Milestones

  • In 1908, UP pioneered the transmission of feature stories and use of reporter bylines.
  • In 1914, Edward Kleinschmidt invented the teletype, which replaced Morse code clickers in delivering news to newspapers. Press critic Oswald Garrison Villard credits United Press with the first use of the teletype.
  • In the 1920s and 1930s, United Press pioneered its financial wire service and organized the United Feature Syndicate.
  • Founded in the 1930s was "Ocean Press", a news service for oceanliners, consisting of copy from United Press and later United Press International. This ship-board publication was published by a separate corporate subsidiary of Scripps, but essentially under one roof with UP/UPI at the Daily News Building in New York. The subheadline under the "Ocean Press" logo was: "WORLDWIDE NEWS of UNITED PRESS . . . TRANSMITTED by RADIOMARINE CORPORATION OF AMERICA" ... which appears to have been a subsidiary of RCA. Some mastheads were labeled "UNITED PRESS - RCA NEWS SERVICE."
  • In 1935, UP was the first major news service to offer news to broadcasters.
  • 1945 saw it launch the first all-sports wire.
  • In 1948, UP Movietone, a newsfilm syndication service, was started with 20th Century Fox.
  • In 1951, United Press offered the first teletypesetter (TTS) service, enabling newspapers to automatically set and justify type from wire transmissions.
  • In 1952, United Press launched the first international television news film service.
  • The 'UPI March', as written and performed by the Cities Service Band of America under the direction of Paul Lavalle, debuted at the Belasco Theater in New York on December 9, 1952. The UPI March was also played at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
  • In 1953, UPI had the first, fully automatic photo receiver, UNIFAX.
  • In 1958, it launched the UPI Audio Network, the first wire service radio network.
  • In 1974, it launched the first "high-speed" data newswire - operating at 1,200 WPM.
  • On April 19, 1979, UPI announced an agreement with Telecomputing Corp. of America to make the UPI world news report available to owners of home computers. Later, UPI was the first news service to provide news to dial-up services and web search pioneers Yahoo! and Excite.
  • In 1981, UPI launched the first satellite data transmissions by a news agency.
  • In 1982, UPI pioneered an eight-level Custom Coding system that allows clients to choose stories based on topic, subtopic and location. It developed one of the first news taxonomies.
  • In 1982, UPI is sold by Scripps to Douglas Ruhe and William Geissler for $1.[5]
  • In 1984, UPI descended into the first of two Chapter 11 bankruptcies.[5]
  • In 1985, Mario Vázquez Raña purchases UPI out of bankruptcy.[5]
  • In 1985 UPI sells its international photo service to Reuters news agency.
  • In 1988, UPI broke the "all or nothing" news service tradition by introducing component products.
  • In 1988, Vázquez Raña sells UPI to Infotechnology Inc.[5]
  • On February 19, 1988, Earl Brian becomes chairman of UPI. Brian also chairs WNW Group and its parent firm, Infotechnology Inc., a New York-based information technology and venture capital company.[6]
  • In 1991, Infotechnology filed for bankruptcy
  • In 1992, UPI is sold to the Middle East Broadcasting Center for $3.5 million
  • In 1993, UPI closed its bureaus and dismissed nearly all of its longtime employees, leaving them without pensions and medical benefits.
  • In 1998, UPI launches first iteration of a direct-to-consumer website with coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
  • In 1999, UPI sold its broadcast operations to AP Radio, which shut it down and converted clients to its own service.
  • In 2000, UPI launches web-based, multilingual content management system replacing PC-UPI.
  • In 2000, UPI was acquired by the Unification Church's News World Communications.
  • In 2005, UPI launched a direct-to-consumer web site.
  • In 2007, UPI launched "Ed" (Editorial Workshop System), a content management system to handle rich media content and distribution, and re-launched its Web site, www.upi.com.
  • In 2008, UPI launched UPIU, a journalism mentoring platform for journalism students and journalism schools around the world.

References

  1. ^ Liebenson, Donald (May 4, 2003). "UPI R.I.P. - As a new book by two veterans of United Press International shows, the world lost more than a scrappy wire service when UPI died. It lost a vital witness to history". Chicago Tribune. p. 18.
  2. ^ News World Communications, Inc.)UPI is headquartered in Washington D.C. During the mid-1980s, at the height of its expansion, UPI operated more than 180 news bureaus around the world and employed nearly 2,000 salaried journalists. Today, except for its Washington office, UPI neither owns nor leases any news bureaus, although it does employ freelance journalists in several of the world's major cities.
  3. ^ Stout, David (2000-05-17). "Helen Thomas, Washington Fixture, Resigns as U.P.I. Reporter". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-03-07. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  4. ^ "UPI Staff Cuts Include White House Correspondent", Editor & Publisher, July 11, 2007
  5. ^ a b c d "U.P.I.: Look Back in Sorrow" (book review of Down to the Wire: UPI's Fight for Survival), The New York Times, December 24, 1989
  6. ^ Vesey, David (1988-03-30). "UPI Announces Business Plan - 1988". Downholders aka: downhold.org. Retrieved 2008-10-21. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

External links

History

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