United Press International
United Press International, UPI short, is a news agency in the United States. It is 1958 emerged from United Press (UP ), and International News Service ( INS).
UP was founded in 1907 by Edward Willis Scripps, INS two years later by the newspaper tycoon William R. Hearst. While the Associated Press (AP) was part of a cooperative design owned numerous newspapers and only supplied the members with news, UPI is understood as a challenger of a monopoly company.
Changes in the media landscape continued to UPI; as the founding family Scripps UPI sold, the company ran into financial turmoil, which led to two bankruptcies. Finally went in 2000, the UPI on the News World Communications completely the property of the Conservative Association Church. The messages have since been disseminated only in abstracts in English, Spanish and Arabic.
From 1946 to November 1978 ran the UPI a German-speaking intelligence service; This was most recently based in Vienna. In Austria, the UPI was the only competitor to the monopoly companies Austria Press Agency (APA ), a cooperative of the Austrian daily newspapers (excluding crown newspaper ) and the ORF.
History
United Press Associations
The newspaper publisher EW Scripps (1854-1926) had founded the first newspaper chain in the United States. When AP refused their services to the Scripps to sell newspapers, Scripps founded together with his partner Milton A. McRae United Press Associations, a fusion of the three regional news agencies Publisher 's Press Association, Scripps McRae Press Association and the Scripps News Association. United Press Associations began on 21 June 1907 of coverage.
United Press was the only major news agency in the world, which was privately owned. At that time dominated the AP news industry in the United States; in Europe, the agencies were under the control of their respective governments:
- Reuters UK,
- Havas in France and
- Wolff in Germany.
William R. Hearst appeared in 1909 with the founding of International News Service first time in the agency business.
It was business principle of AP, not to supply competitors with news of shareholders. However Scripps refused to become shareholders of the AP. He accused the AP of a " clear and unambiguous monopolistic attitude " and claimed that it was impossible " in those cities to establish a new newspaper, which already operate AP shareholders a newspaper ." In contrast, Scripps took the position that a news agency should be open to all media, including the competitors of shareholders.
UPI is founded
When UP and INS merged on 24 May 1958 was the appended in the company name to the UP of United Press International News I of service. Hearst, owner of King Features Syndicate, took a small share of the merged company. The lawyers of both sides feared antitrust problems in the event that the belonging to Scripps United Feature Syndicate, a rival of King Features Syndicate, would be involved in UPI. Thus, the UPI had to be done economically separated from the other companies Scripps empire. This allowed the UPI important marketing tools is not good and was not involved in important sources of income such as from the Peanuts strip by Charles M. Schulz.
The new UPI had 6,000 employees and 5,000 customers, including 1,000 newspapers. In the same year founded the company the UPI Audio Network, the first service for radio stations. 1960 UPI news agency participated in a film for television stations.
The 1990s
AP was able to pass on as a co-operative agency the cost of extraordinary expenses to the carrier newspapers. That was at major sporting events such as the Olympics of meaning, but also in reporting on armed conflicts. UPI clients, however, were able to calculate with a fixed fee. In addition, customers of UPI paid only about half of what AP customers had to pay for the services of AP. For example, paid the Chicago Sun-Times at a certain time of AP $ 12.500 a week, while the UPI only $ 5,000 received; The Wall Street Journal paid AP $ 36,000 a week, the UPI, however, only $ 19,300.
Moreover, the economic situation of UPI was affected by new development in the media sector. Many afternoon newspapers were forced to close, so the customer base of the UPI was smaller. From 1992 to 2000, the UPI changed hands six times. Finally, the company of News World Communications was purchased. Because this company is owned by the Unification Church, the change of ownership sparked a discussion about the editorial independence. Helen Thomas, the most famous UPI journalist in the United States, after 57 years UPI activity resigned from her post as Chief White House Correspondent 's UPI.
The recent past
With the entry of News World Communications UPI came into calmer waters. In addition to reporting on English moved in recent years the Arab reporting from the Middle East and the Spanish reporting from Latin America increasingly into focus.
With Washington, D.C. as the headquarters UPI is currently represented with offices in Beirut, Hong Kong, London, Santiago, Seoul and Tokyo worldwide. Outside the offices correspondents report from all major capitals of what is happening locally. The UPI correspondent in Berlin, Stefan Nicola. For the first time in its history, it has however not accredited reporters at the White House.
Moreover for UPI numerous columnists employed and their contributions with specific current policy issues, such as Deal with security policy and forwarded to international newspapers and agencies. Currently known UPI columnists are:
- Marc S. elbows with "Atlantic Eye"
- William S. Lind, " Military Matters"
- Loren B. Thompson, " Thompson Files"
- Martin Walker " Walker's World"
Former employees of UPI
United Press editor Lucien Carr once said:
"It was the great virtue of UPI that we felt as David, who can take the Goliath AP through the wringer. "
The journalists of UPI received the nickname " Unipresser ". Famous Unipresser were Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, Eric Sevareid, Helen Thomas, Pye Chamberlayne, Frank Bartholomew, Hugh Baillie, Vernon Scott, Chauncey Bailey, Robert H Tanji ( a journalist in Tokyo, who was killed during the practice of the profession ), William L. Shirer ( known for his book the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich ), Thomas Friedman of the New York Times and Myram Borders ( he was 25 years bureau chief in Las Vegas and first reported exclusively about the wedding between Elvis Presley and Priscilla ).
Numerous UPI photographers were awarded the Pulitzer Prize, including Andrew Lopez (1960), Kyoichi Sawada (1966 ), Toshio Sakai (1968 ) and David Hume Kennerly (1972).
Of the numerous books on UPI be mentioned: Gregory Gordon and Ronald E. Cohen 's: " Down To The Wire (1990 )"; Richard M. Hartnett and Billy G. Ferguson: " Unipress " (2003) and Gary Haynes: " Picture This: The Inside Story of UPI News Pictures" (2006) with a foreword by the former Unipressers Walter Cronkite.