United Press International: Encyclopedia - United Press International

United Press International

United Press International (UPI) is a global news agency headquartered in the United States filing news in English, Spanish and Arabic. With roots dating back to 1907, it was once one of the three biggest news agencies in the world, with the Associated Press and Reuters, but has dwindled in size and continues to redefine itself. Today, it is owned by News World Communications, which is owned by the Unification Church.

United Press International - History

United Press International - United Press Associations

Newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps 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. This formula made UP a direct threat to the monopolistic and exclusionary alliances of the major U.S. and European wire services at the time.

Scripps later said: "I regard my life's greatest service to the people of this country to be the creation of the United Press," because the competition provided by UP prevented the Associated Press from having a monopoly in determining what news was provided to the public.

United Press International - Creating UPI

On May 24, 1958, United Press merged with International News Service, which had been formed in 1909 by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, to become United Press International. Later in 1958, it launched the UPI Audio Network, the first wire service radio network.

The 1960 World Book Encyclopedia's description of United Press International, taken from UPI's Trail of Tears, said it was "the largest independent news agency in the world" with more than 5,400 clients, including newspapers, radio and television stations and news magazines in more than 70 countries. "UPI maintains 211 news and picture bureaus, including 119 in the United States. It employs a staff of over 10,000 persons and leases over 425,000 miles of wire, It sends out its dispatches in 48 languages.Subsidiaries include United Features Syndicate, the British United Press, and Ocean Press. United Press Movietone, a television film service, is operated jointly with 20th Century-Fox Studios."

United Press International - Decline and comeback

UPI was hurt by changes in the modern news business, including the closing of many of America's afternoon newspapers, and was unprofitable for years as its customer base shrank. It went through seven owners between 1992 and 2000, when it was acquired by News World Communications, owner of the Washington Times.

Concerns about editorial independence have been questioned of recent owners of UPI. Because News World Communications is owned by the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, this purchase raised some concerns, most notably from Helen Thomas, who resigned her position as UPI's chief White House correspondent after 57 years.

UPI Editor of English edition, Martin Walker, a winner of Britain's 'Reporter of the Year' award when he worked for The Guardian, has said he has experienced "no editorial pressure from the owners."

With investment from News World in its Arabic and Spanish-language services, UPI has been trying to make a comeback. In 2004, UPI won the Clapper Award from the Senate Press Gallery and the Fourth Estate Award for its investigative reporting on the dilapidated hospitals awaiting wounded U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq.

United Press International - People of UPI

"From its inception, UPI was the underdog, offering young journalists little pay but a lot of opportunity. Time and again, the upstart, pocket-poor wire managed to beat its competition. According to Lucien Carr -- whose pal Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road using a roll of Teletype paper swiped from UPI's office -- "UPI's great virtue was that we were the little guy [that] could screw the AP."

News people who worked for UPI are nicknamed "Unipressers." Famous Unipressers from UPI's past include journalists Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, Eric Sevareid, Vernon Scott, Helen Thomas, Pye Chamberlayne, Frank Bartholomew, Hugh Baillie, Vernon Scott, Brit Hume and William L. Shirer, who is best remembered today for writing Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and The New York Times' Thomas Friedman.

Richard Harnett, who spent more than 30 years at UPI, recalls what is often considered its greatest achievement: Merriman Smith's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of John F. Kennedy's assassination. "Smith was in the press car....When he heard shots, he called in to the Dallas office and sent a flash bulletin," Harnett says. "The AP reporter started pounding on his shoulder to get to the phone, but Merriman kept it from him." (Quoted - Brill's Content, April 2001)

Arnaud de Borchgrave, Newsweek's chief foreign correspondent for 25 years, covering more than 90 countries and 17 wars, is currently UPI Editor-at-Large and began his journalistic career at UPI in 1946.

United Press International - 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 first use of the teletype.
• In the 1920s and 1930s The United Press pioneered its financial wire service and organized the United Feature Syndicate.
• Founded in the 1930's was "Ocean Press" a news service for ocean liners comprised 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 Services Band of America under the direction of Paul LaValle debuted at the Belasco Theater in New York on Dec. 9, 1952. The UPI March was also played at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
• In 1953 it had the first, fully automatic photo receiver, UNIFAX
• In 1958 it launched the UPI Audio Network, the first wire service radio network.
• In 1974 launches the first "high-speed" data newswire - 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 such as Prodigy, CompuServe and world-wide web search pioneers Yahoo! and Excite.
• In 1981 UPI launches 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. Developing one of the first news taxonomies.
• In 1988 UPI breaks "all or nothing" news service tradition by introducing component products.
• In 2000 UPI launches a multi-lingual editorial and content management system CMS.
• On October 14, 2005 UPI launches a direct-to-consumer web site.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "United Press International", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki