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 in turn wholly owned by the Unification Church.

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.

Related Topics:
1908 - Byline - 1914 - Edward Kleinschmidt - Teletype - Morse code - Oswald Garrison Villard

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In the 1920's and 1930's The United Press pioneered its financial wire service and organized the United Feature Syndicate.

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1920 - 1930

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Also 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."

Related Topics:
1930 - RCA

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In 1935 UP was the first major news service to offer news to broadcasters. 1945 saw it launch the first all-sports wire.

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1935 - 1945

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In 1948 UP Movietone, a newsfilm syndication service, was started with 20th Century-Fox.

Related Topics:
1948 - Fox

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In 1951 United Press offered the first teletypesetter (TTS) service, enabling newspapers to automatically set and justify type from wire transmissions.

Related Topics:
1951 - Teletypesetter

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In 1952 United Press launched the first international television news film service.

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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.

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UPI, in 1958, launched the UPI Audio Network, the first wire service radio network.

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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

Related Topics:
April 19 - 1979 - Telecomputing Corp. of America - Prodigy - CompuServe - Yahoo! - Excite

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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, UPI use of metadata helped define how information was categorized and customized to the user.

Related Topics:
1982 - Custom Coding - Metadata

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