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94-444: United Press International ( UPI ) is an American international news agency whose newswires , photo , news film , and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers , magazines , radio and television stations for most of the 20th century until its eventual decline beginning in the early 1980s. At its peak, it had more than 6,000 media subscribers. Since the first of several sales and staff cutbacks in 1982, and

188-765: A stringer for the Windsor Star . He also occasionally wrote for the Family Herald , Maclean's , Chatelaine and the Star Weekly . Having developed a strong network of contacts in the Washington area, Nash left IFAP to become a freelance journalist in 1958. Politics had always been a passion, and in order to write and file stories for many media outlets, he now had the opportunity to meet many American politicians, including Joseph McCarthy , Richard Nixon , Adlai Stevenson , Lyndon B. Johnson , and

282-474: A co-production with ITV about the Second World War . Although most of these series garnered critical acclaim and good ratings, not everything was a success. In 1976, Nash and Peter Hernndorf launched a late-night current affairs talk show, Ninety Minutes Live with host Peter Gzowski , who, although good as a radio interviewer, was awkward on television. In an effort to prop up falling ratings,

376-599: A common training ground for generations of journalists. Walter Cronkite , who started with United Press in Kansas City , gained fame for his coverage of World War II in Europe and turned down Edward R. Murrow 's first offer of a CBS job to stay with UP, but who later went on to anchor the CBS Evening News , once said, "I felt every Unipresser got up in the morning saying, 'This is the day I'm going to beat

470-628: A copy. Seeing Joel McCrea play a trench-coated reporter in Alfred Hitchcock 's wartime thriller Foreign Correspondent further fuelled his personal ambition to become a journalist. In his early teens, Nash reported on weekly high school sports for The Globe and Mail . In 1944, he dropped out of high school to become editor of Canadian High News , a small weekly tabloid distributed to most high schools in southern Ontario. His fellow staff members included Keith Davey and Robert McMichael . The following year, he spent some time editing

564-497: A corresponding shrinkage of its traditional media customer base. Since the 1999 sale of its broadcast client list to its one-time major rival, the AP, UPI has concentrated on smaller information market niches. It no longer services media organizations in a major way. In 2000, UPI was purchased by News World Communications , an international news media company founded in 1976 by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon . It now maintains

658-429: A couple of crime magazines, then reported for a Toronto neighbourhood newspaper for a few months. Nash and some former staff members from Canadian High News then bought up two neighbourhood newspapers, but with little advertising revenue, both papers quickly ran out of money and went out of business. Nash briefly tried his hand at writing for pulp magazines True Confessions and True Crime . Nash briefly attended

752-705: A half-dozen visits to Central and South America, and two trips to Southeast Asia to provide a Canadian perspective to the Vietnam War . He also interviewed many prominent newsmakers of the time, including Pierre Salinger , George Lincoln Rockwell , Allen Dulles , Dick Gregory , Ronald Reagan , Colombian president Guillermo León Valencia , Venezuelan president Romulo Betancourt and Dean Rusk . Nash stepped down from reporting in 1969 to join CBC's management in Toronto as Director of News and Current Affairs. Foreseeing

846-519: A news website and photo service and electronically publishes several information product packages. Based mostly on aggregation from other sources on the Web and gathered by a small editorial staff and stringers , UPI's daily content consists of a newsbrief summary service called "NewsTrack," which includes general, business, sports, science, health and entertainment reports, and "Quirks in the News." It also sells

940-556: A nod to his journalistic background as opposed to being simply a news reader, Nash was given the title "Chief Correspondent" rather than "News Anchor". On his first night on air, November 20, 1978, his lead story was the Jonestown Massacre . During his tenure as anchor, Nash covered the 1979 Canadian federal election , the sudden fall of the Joe Clark minority government and the re-election to power of Pierre Trudeau ,

1034-670: A premium service, which has deeper coverage and analysis of emerging threats, the security industry, and energy resources. UPI's content is presented in text, video and photo formats, in English, Spanish, and Arabic. UPI's main office is in the Miami metropolitan area and it maintains office locations in five other countries and uses freelance journalists in other major cities. In 1923, UP founded British United Press as its Canadian subsidiary with headquarters in Montreal . It soon expanded to

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1128-416: A profit from selling that news to papers owned by others. At that time and until World War II , most newspapers relied on news agencies for stories outside their immediate geographic areas. Despite strong newspaper industry opposition, UP started to sell news to the new and competitive radio medium in 1935, years before competitor AP, controlled by the newspaper industry, did likewise. Scripps' United Press

1222-405: A profit. The company had begun to sell Internet-adapted products to such websites as Excite and Yahoo. At that point, UPI CEO Arnaud de Borchgrave orchestrated UPI's exit from its last major media niche, the broadcast news business that United Press had initiated in the 1930s. De Borchgrave maintained that "what was brilliant pioneering work on the part of UPI prior to World War II, with radio news,

1316-637: A reporter in the White House press corps or a bureau covering the United Nations. UPI spokespersons and press releases said the company would be focusing instead on expanding operations in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, and reporting on security threats, intelligence and energy issues. In 2008, UPI began UPIU, a journalism mentoring platform for students and journalism schools, that allowed recent college graduates to post their work on

1410-412: Is now a static quantity and so far as I'm concerned, certainly doesn't fit into my plans for the future". He sought to shift UPI's dwindling resources into Internet-based delivery of newsletter services, focusing more on technical and diplomatic specialties than on general news. The rump UPI thus sold the client list of its still-significant radio network and broadcast wire to its former rival, the AP. UPI

1504-736: Is the European Alliance of Press Agencies, while the OANA is an association of news agencies of the Asia-Pacific region. MINDS is a global network of leading news agencies collaborating in new media business. Knowlton Nash Cyril Knowlton Nash OC OOnt (November 18, 1927 – May 24, 2014) was a Canadian journalist, author and news anchor . He was senior anchor of CBC Television 's flagship news program , The National from 1978 until his retirement in 1988. He began his career in journalism by selling newspapers on

1598-519: Is the philosophical basis for their enterprises – or failing that, widely acceptable neutrality. Newspaper syndicates generally sell their material to one client in each territory only, while news agencies distribute news articles to all interested parties. Only a few large newspapers could afford bureaus outside their home city; they relied instead on news agencies, especially Havas (founded 1835) in France—now known as Agence France-Presse (AFP)—and

1692-592: Is well researched, with a clear, tight focus. It takes the reader inside the councils of state to show how personal relations -- especially hatred -- at the highest levels can influence dealings between nations." In 1988, Nash offered to retire from his duties at The National in order to keep Peter Mansbridge from moving to the morning news at American network CBS . When Mansbridge accepted Nash's offer and stayed at CBC, Nash stepped down as chief correspondent, although he continued to anchor The National on Saturday evenings and filled in as weekday anchor when Mansbridge

1786-637: The Cleveland Press , publisher E. W. Scripps (1854–1926) created the first chain of newspapers in the United States. Because the then-recently reorganized Associated Press refused to sell its services to several of his papers, most of them evening dailies in competition with existing AP franchise holders, in 1907 Scripps merged three smaller syndicates under his ownership or control, the Publishers Press Association,

1880-786: The Agenzia Stefani , which became the most important press agency in Italy from the mid-19th century to World War II , in Turin in 1853. The development of the telegraph in the 1850s led to the creation of strong national agencies in England, Germany, Austria and the United States. But despite the efforts of governments, through telegraph laws such as in 1878 in France, inspired by the British Telegraph Act of 1869 which paved

1974-586: The Associated Press (founded 1846) in the United States. Former Havas employees founded Reuters in 1851 in Britain and Wolff in 1849 in Germany. In 1865, Reuter and Wolff signed agreements with Havas's sons, forming a cartel designating exclusive reporting zones for each of their agencies within Europe. For international news, the agencies pooled their resources, so that Havas, for example, covered

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2068-439: The Associated Press (AP) and internationally with AP, Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP) . At its peak, UPI had more than 2,000 full-time employees and 200 news bureaus in 92 countries; it had more than 6,000 media subscribers. With the rising popularity of television news, the business of UPI began to decline as the circulation of afternoon newspapers, its chief client category, began to fall. Its decline accelerated after

2162-575: The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), summed the book up this way: "While it exposes corporate stupidities, political meddling and boozing executives, it vigorously endorses public broadcasting." Nash's books continued to garner favourable reviews, with critics often mentioning his in-depth research and personal knowledge of events and notable people. Geoffrey Stevens wrote of Kennedy And Diefenbaker: Fear And Loathing Across The Undefended Border : "It

2256-544: The Internet ). Corporations, individuals, analysts, and intelligence agencies may also subscribe. News sources, collectively, described as alternative media provide reporting which emphasizes a self-defined "non-corporate view" as a contrast to the points of view expressed in corporate media and government-generated news releases. Internet -based alternative news agencies form one component of these sources. There are several different associations of news agencies. EANA

2350-913: The United Kingdom and India , and was one of several news agencies supplying news bulletins to the BBC until the broadcaster began hiring its own reporters. The BBC's decision in 1936 to use BUP as a supplier of international news reports engendered opposition from other news agencies and the Foreign Office as BUP was seen as a front group for the American-based United Press and thus represented American rather than British news values. BUP correspondents included future anchors Knowlton Nash and Walter Cronkite . In 1936, BUP launched Canada's first coast-to-coast radio newswire service providing news copy to private radio stations across

2444-517: The United Press International Radio Network , was a spinoff from the newsfilm service and eventually provided news material to more than a thousand radio stations and US and foreign networks, including NPR . UPI came close to the size of the AP in the early 1960s, but as publishing companies began to pare their evening newspapers, it was dropped by papers that could no longer afford to subscribe to both UPI and

2538-458: The University of Toronto but in 1947, at age 19, he was hired as night editor in the Toronto office of BUP, a wire news service affiliated with United Press . This position mainly involved "scalping" news stories from the Toronto newspapers—rewriting stories covered by the newspapers, then filing them by teletype . After a few months, Nash also started to write original feature articles, and

2632-515: The $ 1.0 – $ 1.5 million per month that UPI was already losing. Facing news industry skepticism about their background and qualifications to run an international news agency, Ruhe and Geissler watched an increase in contract cancellations. Despite serious cash flow problems, they moved UPI's headquarters from New York City to Washington, DC, incurring significant additional costs due to construction cost overruns. During this period, UPI's 25-year-old audio news actuality service for radio stations

2726-467: The 1918 armistice ending World War I had been declared four days before it happened. Howard's reputation survived and he later became a Scripps partner, whose name appeared in one of the Scripps subsidiary companies, Scripps-Howard. But the mistake dogged UP/UPI for generations. Still, the agency's reporters were often able to tell stories more quickly and accurately although they were usually outnumbered by

2820-540: The 1980 Quebec referendum on sovereignty , the 1980 Republican National Convention in Detroit that nominated Ronald Reagan and the subsequent election of Reagan to the U.S. presidency, the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, to Lady Diana Spencer , the 1983 Conservative leadership review that saw Joe Clark replaced by Brian Mulroney , the February 1984 resignation of Pierre Trudeau after his "walk in

2914-644: The 1982 sale of UPI by the Scripps company. The E.W. Scripps Company controlled United Press until its absorption of William Randolph Hearst 's smaller competing agency, INS, in 1958 to form UPI. With the Hearst Corporation as a minority partner, UPI continued under Scripps management until 1982. Since its sale in 1982, UPI has changed ownership several times and was twice in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. With each change in ownership came deeper service and staff cutbacks and changes of focus and

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3008-483: The 1999 sale of its broadcast client list to its main U.S. rival, the Associated Press , UPI has concentrated on smaller information-market niches. Formally named United Press Associations for incorporation and legal purposes but publicly known and identified as United Press or UP , the news agency was created by the 1907 uniting of three smaller news syndicates by the Midwest newspaper publisher E. W. Scripps . It

3102-605: The AP name (as detailed at Associated Press and in AP's 2007 history, Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything Else , cited in Notes ). Drawing lessons from the battles between the earlier United Press and the various AP's, Scripps required that there be no restrictions on who could buy news from his news service, and he made the new UP service available to anyone, including his competitors. Scripps also hoped to make

3196-447: The AP. UPI's failure to develop a television presence or subsidiary television news service has also been cited as one of the causes of its decline. By the early 1980s, the number of staffers was down to 1,800 and there were just 100 news bureaus. Under pressure from some of E. W. Scripps ' heirs, the Scripps company , which had been underwriting UPI's expenses at a loss for at least two decades, began trying to transfer control of UPI in

3290-484: The CBC , which traced the history of public broadcasting in Canada from its beginnings in the 1930s to the mid-1990s, chronicling the inside struggles at the CBC as programmers fought against the frequent short-sightedness of corporate executives while both sides coped with the hostility of federal politicians who refused to provide adequate, long-term funding. Harry J. Boyle , a veteran CBC insider and one-time chair of

3384-428: The CBC's reportage, and modified his Telex to instead call for "responsible journalistic professionalism". Nash was candidly self-critical about his role in allowing the two hours of self-censorship, and later wrote, "I certainly was not skeptical enough about what Pelletier had said to Davidson and let my nationalism override my journalistic values. There are times when that is necessary, but this wasn't one of them and I

3478-470: The Canadian state, and that CBC reporting should not "inflame" the situation. Davidson asked Nash to ensure that CBC News would not indulge in "speculative discussions" about the crisis — in effect, self-censoring any political commentary. Nash immediately sent out a Telex to CBC staff to that effect. Two hours later, after some introspection, Nash realized that he was agreeing to government interference in

3572-526: The French Empire, South America and the Balkans and shared the news with the other national agencies. In France the typical contract with Havas provided a provincial newspaper with 1800 lines of telegraphed text daily, for an annual subscription rate of 10,000 francs. Other agencies provided features and fiction for their subscribers. In the 1830s, France had several specialized agencies. Agence Havas

3666-648: The Scripps-McRae Press Association, and the Scripps News Association, to form United Press Associations, with headquarters in New York City. Scripps had been a subscriber to an earlier news agency, also named United Press , that existed in the late 1800s, partly in cooperation with the management of the original New York-based AP and partly in existential competition with two Chicago-based organizations also using

3760-562: The UP-INS merger involved another business component that was to hurt the new UPI company badly in later years. Because INS had been a subsidiary of Hearst's King Features Syndicate and Scripps controlled several other newspaper syndicates, both companies feared possible antitrust issues. So they deliberately kept their respective syndicates out of the combined UPI company. That move cost UPI the revenues of its previous United Feature Syndicate subsidiary, which in later years made large profits on

3854-556: The agency away to two inexperienced businessmen, Douglas Ruhe (son of David Ruhe , a member of the Universal House of Justice , the supreme governing body of the Baháʼí Faith ) and William Geissler, originally associated with two better-known partners, who soon departed. Ruhe and Geissler obtained UPI for $ 1. Under the terms of the purchase agreement, Scripps first injected UPI with a $ 5 million cash balance, in acknowledgement of

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3948-632: The camera in 1978 as anchor of CBC's late evening news program, The National . He stepped down from that position in 1988 to make way for Peter Mansbridge . Nash wrote several books about Canadian journalism and television, including his own memoirs as a foreign correspondent. Nash was born in Toronto , Ontario , Canada, on November 18, 1927, and named "Cyril" after his father, a racetrack betting manager. The young boy disliked being called "Cyril Junior", and at age five, asked his parents to instead call him by his middle name, Knowlton. From an early age, Nash

4042-468: The competition. In 1950, for example, UP reported the invasion of South Korea by North Korea two hours and forty minutes before its archrival, the AP. The New York Times later apologized to UP for refusing to print information on the invasion until the AP had confirmed it. Frank Bartholomew, the last UP president to ascend to the agency's top job directly from its news, rather than sales ranks, took over in 1955, and according to his memoirs cited in Notes ,

4136-521: The country to The National 's Toronto offices.) Nash also hired a new generation of producers and managers, including Peter Herrndorf as head of TV Current Affairs. On October 15, 1970, during the October Crisis , Secretary of State Gérard Pelletier convinced CBC President George Davidson that the situation in Quebec threatened to grow into a widespread insurrection that would threaten

4230-472: The country. In 1940, the Canadian government suspended the broadcast licenses of BUP and Transradio Press Service both of whom, unlike Canadian Press , sold commercial sponsorships for its news bulletins in violation of government policy. Transport minister C.D. Howe , who was responsible for broadcasting policy, announced that the two wire services must “show their news source is accurate” in order to retain their licenses. After complaints by Transradio that

4324-632: The creation of newspaper cooperatives in the Commonwealth and national agencies in Asia, two of its strong areas. After the Second World War, the movement for the creation of national agencies accelerated, when accessing the independence of former colonies, the national agencies were operated by the state. Reuters, became cooperative, managed a breakthrough in finance, and helped to reduce the number of U.S. agencies from three to one, along with

4418-437: The day, allowed them much freedom in chronicling the events of the civil rights struggle. White House reporter Helen Thomas became the public face of UPI, as she was seen at televised press conferences beginning in the early 1960s. UPI famously scooped the AP in reporting the assassination of US President John Kennedy on Friday, November 22, 1963. UPI White House reporter Merriman Smith was an eyewitness, and he commandeered

4512-405: The death of William "Red" Hill Jr., who died trying to emulate his daredevil father by going over Niagara Falls in a floating contraption; and the 1951 Canadian royal tour of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip . In 1951, Nash was hired by the Washington, D.C.-based International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) to gather information and edit their monthly newsletter. His office

4606-572: The dissolution of previous marriages on his peripatetic life as a journalist and his over-dedication to his work. Nash was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2002 but remained sanguine about the diagnosis, saying that many other people faced much greater challenges. "I can argue that I can get a couple of extra strokes in my golf game", he told the Toronto Star in 2006. He died on May 24, 2014, in Toronto , surrounded by his family. Shortly afterwards on The National , Peter Mansbridge broke

4700-539: The early 1980s. It tried to bring in additional newspaper industry partners and when that failed, engaged in serious negotiations with British competitor Reuters , which wanted to increase its US presence. As detailed in "Down to the Wire", by Gordon and Cohen, cited in Notes , Reuters did extensive due diligence and expressed an interest in parts of the UPI service, but did not wish to maintain it in full. Scripps wound up giving

4794-441: The early TV operation of ABC News . In subsequent decades, it underwent several changes in partnerships and names, becoming best known as United Press International Television News (UPITN). Senior UPITN executives later helped Ted Turner create CNN , with its first two presidents, Reese Schonfeld and Burt Reinhardt , coming from UPITN ranks. The UPI Audio actuality service for radio stations, created in 1958 and later renamed

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4888-711: The extraordinary coverage costs. In its heyday, newspapers typically paid UPI about half what they paid AP in the same cities for the same services: At one point, for example, the Chicago Sun-Times paid AP $ 12,500 a week, but UPI only $ 5,000; the Wall Street Journal paid AP $ 36,000 a week, but UPI only $ 19,300. The AP, which serviced 1,243 newspapers at the time, remained UPI's main competitor. In 1959, UPI had 6,208 clients in 92 countries and territories, 234 news and picture bureaus, and an annual payroll of $ 34,000,000, ($ 355,369,863 in today's dollars). But

4982-567: The federal elections of 1962 , 1963 and 1965 ; the 1965 Saskatchewan doctors' strike ; and the Gerda Munsinger sex scandal of 1966. Freelance correspondents were not well paid by CBC, and in 1965, Nash helped to form the CBC Foreign Correspondents Association in order to negotiate a better wage for members, and became its first vice-president. Nash also made extended trips abroad, including

5076-700: The first volume of his memoirs as a foreign correspondent, History on the Run . John Mitchell called it "fascinating reading for anyone interested in a first-hand account of the political and social events of the 1950s and 1960s", and wrote of Nash's style, "His prose is crisp and precise. Yet the descriptive passages, in particular the John F. Kennedy funeral procession, evoke old memories and emotions in vivid detail." Nash subsequently wrote eight more books about his career, journalism, politics and Canadian broadcasting including Microphone Wars: A History of Triumph and Betrayal at

5170-494: The hell out of AP.' That was part of the spirit. We knew we were undermanned. But we knew we could do a darn good job despite that, and so many times, we did." Despite that, like all agencies that deal with huge volumes of timely information, UP and later UPI had its share of remembered mistakes. As recounted in the various printed histories of UPI cited in Notes , the most famous one came early in its history. UP's president, Roy W. Howard , then traveling in France, telegraphed that

5264-522: The huge U.S. domestic market, boosted by the runaway success of radio, all three major agencies required the dismantling of the "cartel agencies" through the Agreement of 26 August 1927. They were concerned about the success of U.S. agencies from other European countries which sought to create national agencies after the First World War. Reuters had been weakened by war censorship, which promoted

5358-410: The initial "current affairs" focus of the show drifted towards entertainment, but audiences did not respond and the program was pulled after two seasons. Following the departure of Peter Kent as anchor of The National in 1978, Nash was approached by the executive producer of the program, Trina McQueen , about becoming the anchor. Nash agreed to audition for the role, and was subsequently chosen. As

5452-539: The internationalization of the Spanish EFE and the globalization of Agence France-Presse. In 1924, Benito Mussolini placed Agenzia Stefani under the direction of Manlio Morgagni , who expanded the agency's reach significantly both within Italy and abroad. Agenzia Stefani was dissolved in 1945, and its technical structure and organization were transferred to the new Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA). Wolffs

5546-415: The major agencies were provided with new opportunities in television and magazine, and news agencies delivered specialized production of images and photos, the demand for which is constantly increasing. In France, for example, they account for over two-thirds of national market. By the 1980s, the four main news agencies, AFP, AP, UPI and Reuters, provided over 90% of foreign news printed by newspapers around

5640-561: The move was an attempt by “selfish publishing and monopolistic interests … to destroy independent news services throughout the Dominion”, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation , which at the time was also responsible for regulating private radio broadcasters, agreed to reinstate Transradio's and BUP's licenses while also announcing a plan to enforce the ban on commercial news broadcasts by editing dispatches by

5734-420: The need to adopt new technologies to traditional journalism, he quickly upgraded the CBC's late evening news program, The National , from black & white to colour, and established an "electronic information highway" by dedicated phone line so that the Toronto office could quickly receive stories from distant parts of Canada. (At the time, CBC air-freighted film and videotape of news stories from other parts of

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5828-521: The new UPI and the columns of popular INS writers, such as Bob Considine , Louella Parsons and Ruth Montgomery , were carried by UPI. Rival AP was a publishers' cooperative and could assess its members to help pay the extraordinary costs of covering major news—wars, the Olympic Games, national political conventions. UPI clients, in contrast, paid a fixed annual rate; depending on individual contracts, UPI could not always ask them to help shoulder

5922-412: The philosophy: To achieve such wide acceptability, the agencies avoid overt partiality. Demonstrably correct information is their stock in trade. Traditionally, they report at a reduced level of responsibility, attributing their information to a spokesman, the press, or other sources. They avoid making judgments and steer clear of doubt and ambiguity. Though their founders did not use the word, objectivity

6016-533: The picture component of Hearst's INS to the Bettmann Archive . Bettmann was later sold to Microsoft founder Bill Gates 's separate Corbis Corporation , storing them underground in Pennsylvania and digitizing them for licensing, frequently without any notation of their UPI origins. In August 2011 Corbis announced a deal with AP to distribute each other's photos to their clients, effectively combining

6110-460: The political rivalry between John Diefenbaker and Lester B. Pearson from 1957–1967; The Days Before Yesterday , about the ascendancy of the federal Liberal party in 1905 under Wilfrid Laurier to its almost complete collapse in 1957; individual series on both John Diefenbaker and Lester B. Pearson; Images of Canada , a look at the social history of Canada; The Age of Uncertainty with Canadian-born economist John Kenneth Galbraith ; and

6204-546: The pre-1983 UPI library with that of its former main rival for some marketing purposes. In 2016 Corbis sold to the Visual China Group. UPI's remaining minority stake in UPITN was also sold and the agency was renamed Worldwide Television News (WTN). As with its photographs, UPI thereby lost all control of its newsfilm and video library, which is now held by WTN-successor Associated Press Television News , which entered

6298-434: The press car's only phone to dictate the story to UPI as AP reporter Jack Bell tried—without success—to wrest the phone away so he could call his office. Smith and UPI won a Pulitzer Prize for this reporting. United Press had no direct wirephoto service until 1952, when it absorbed co-owned ACME Newspictures , under pressure from parent company Scripps to better compete with AP's news and photo services. By that time, UP

6392-660: The site but did not pay for stories. United Press International conferred sports awards annually until 1996 . The awards were given to basketball players, basketball coaches, football players and athletes in general. The different awards were: While much of normal news agency work is little publicized, many UP/UPI news staffers have gained fame, either while with the agency or in later careers. They include journalists, news executives, novelists and high government officials. Among them: UPI reporters and photographers have won ten Pulitzer Prizes : Current History News agency Although there are many news agencies around

6486-433: The snow", and the 1984 Canadian federal election that saw John Turner fall to Brian Mulroney. Nash was also in front of the camera on January 11, 1982 when The National was controversially moved from its customary timeslot of 11 p.m. to 10 p.m., lengthened from 15 to 20 minutes, and joined to a new 40-minute current affairs program, The Journal , with hosts Barbara Frum and Mary Lou Finlay . In 1984, Nash wrote

6580-581: The streets of Toronto during World War II . Before age 20, he was a professional journalist for British United Press (BUP). After some time as a freelance foreign correspondent, he became the CBC's Washington correspondent during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, also covering stories in South and Central America and Vietnam. He moved back to Toronto in 1968 to join management as head of CBC's news and information programming, then stepped back in front of

6674-627: The syndication of Peanuts and other popular comic strips and columns. UPI had an advantage of independence over the AP in reporting on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Because the AP was a cooperative essentially owned by the newspapers, those in the South influenced its coverage of the racial unrest and protests, often ignoring, minimizing, or slanting the reporting. UPI did not have that sort of pressure, and management, according to UPI reporters and photographers of

6768-425: The up-and-coming John F. Kennedy and his brothers Robert and Ted Kennedy . His first major political event was the 1960 Democratic National Convention , where he was an eyewitness to many of the backroom and convention floor deals that resulted in the nomination of John F. Kennedy. Nash's first television news assignment was covering the funeral of John Foster Dulles for the CBC on May 27, 1959. Nash initially

6862-893: The video news field long after UPI left it. Years of mismanagement, missed opportunities and continual wage and staff cuts followed. By 1984, UPI had descended into the first of two Chapter 11 bankruptcies . Mario Vázquez Raña , a Mexican media magnate, with a nominal American minority partner, Houston real estate developer Joseph Russo, purchased UPI out of bankruptcy for $ 40 million, losing millions during his short tenure, and firing numerous high-level staff. In 1988, Vázquez Raña sold UPI to Infotechnology, Inc., an information technology and venture capital company and parent company of cable TV's Financial News Network , both headed by Earl Brian , who also became UPI chairman. In early 1991, Infotechnology itself filed for bankruptcy, announced layoffs at UPI and sought to terminate certain employee benefits in an attempt to keep UPI afloat. At that point, UPI

6956-668: The way for the nationalisation of telegraph companies and their operations, the cost of telegraphy remained high. In the United States, the judgment in Inter Ocean Publishing v. Associated Press facilitated competition by requiring agencies to accept all newspapers wishing to join. As a result of the increasing newspapers, the Associated Press was now challenged by the creation of United Press Associations in 1907 and International News Service by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1909. Driven by

7050-550: The wire services before they were distributed to radio stations. In 1958, when United Press merged with the International News Service to become UPI, British United Press was renamed United Press International of Canada. In 1979, 80% of UPI Canada was sold to the Toronto Sun newspaper chain and renamed United Press Canada. In 1985, UPC was sold to Canadian Press , which absorbed it. Beginning with

7144-420: The world, three global news agencies, Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Associated Press (AP), and Reuters have offices in most countries of the world, cover all areas of media, and provide the majority of international news printed by the world's newspapers. All three began with and continue to operate on a basic philosophy of providing a single objective news feed to all subscribers. Jonathan Fenby explains

7238-1181: The world. News agencies can be corporations that sell news (e.g., PA Media , Thomson Reuters , dpa and United Press International ). Other agencies work cooperatively with large media companies, generating their news centrally and sharing local news stories the major news agencies may choose to pick up and redistribute (e.g., Associated Press (AP), Agence France-Presse (AFP) or the Indian news agency PTI ). Governments may also control news agencies: China ( Xinhua ), Russia ( TASS ), and several other countries have government-funded news agencies which also use information from other agencies as well. Commercial newswire services charge businesses to distribute their news (e.g., Business Wire , GlobeNewswire , PR Newswire , PR Web , and Cision ). The major news agencies generally prepare hard news stories and feature articles that can be used by other news organizations with little or no modification, and then sell them to other news organizations. They provide these articles in bulk electronically through wire services (originally they used telegraphy ; today they frequently use

7332-605: Was aimed at creating a stronger competitor for the Associated Press and a stronger economic entity than either UP or INS. The newly formed United Press International (UPI) had 950 client newspapers. Fearing possible antitrust issues with the Eisenhower Administration Justice Department , Scripps and Hearst rushed the merger through with unusual speed and secrecy. Although all UP employees were retained, most INS employees lost their jobs with practically no warning. A relative few did join

7426-399: Was also deeply involved with the newer visual medium of television . In 1948, it entered into a partnership with 20th Century Fox subsidiary Fox Movietone News to shoot newsfilm for television stations. That service, United Press Movietone, or UPMT, was a pioneer in newsfilm syndication and numbered among its clients major US and foreign networks and local stations, including for many years

7520-723: Was also sent to cover the Ontario provincial legislature as well as professional sports events in Toronto. The following year, Nash was assigned to BUP's Halifax office as bureau manager, responsible for news coverage in The Maritimes and Newfoundland . In 1949, he was promoted to manager of BUP's Vancouver office, where he covered the protests by the " Sons of Freedom " sect of Doukhobors , and interviewed various celebrities, including Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee . In 1951, at age 23, Nash returned to BUP's Toronto office, this time as bureau manager. Among other stories, he covered

7614-551: Was considered "a scrappy alternative" news source to the AP. UP reporters were called "Unipressers" and were noted for their fiercely aggressive and competitive streak. Another hallmark of the company's culture was little formal training of reporters; new hires were often thrust into a "sink-or-swim" situation of reporting on an unfamiliar subject. They were weaned on UP's famous and well-documented (though frequently misappropriated and misquoted) slogan of "Get it first, but FIRST, get it RIGHT." Despite controversy, UP (and later UPI) became

7708-506: Was down to 585 employees. Later that year, UPI filed for bankruptcy for the second time, asking for relief from $ 50 million in debt so that it could be sale-able. In 1992, a group of Saudi investors, ARA Group International (AGI), bought the bankrupt UPI for $ 4 million. By 1998, UPI had fewer than 250 employees and 12 offices. Although the Saudi-based investors claimed to have poured more than $ 120 million into UPI, it had failed to turn

7802-476: Was fascinated with the world of journalism: by age 8, he was writing his own news sheet and selling advertising space to local merchants in exchange for candy. By age 9 he was writing letters to the editors of Toronto newspapers, and by age 10 he was operating a newsstand. In 1940, at age 12, Nash was a newspaper boy on the streets of Toronto selling the Toronto Star and Toronto Telegram for three cents

7896-593: Was founded in 1835 by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis Havas , to supply news about France to foreign customers. In the 1840s, Havas gradually incorporated other French agencies into his agency. Agence Havas evolved into Agence France-Presse (AFP). Two of his employees, Bernhard Wolff and Paul Julius Reuter , later set up rival news agencies, Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau in 1849 in Berlin and Reuters in 1851 in London. Guglielmo Stefani founded

7990-527: Was headed by Hugh Baillie (1890–1966) from 1935 to 1955. At the time of his retirement, UP had 2,900 clients in the United States, and 1,500 abroad. In 1958, it became United Press International after absorbing the International News Service (INS) in May. As either UP or UPI, the agency was among the largest newswire services in the world, competing domestically for about 90 years with

8084-571: Was not that interested in doing television reports, which only earned him the same fee as radio reports but took much longer to prepare; but he soon realized that the future of news reportage lay in television, and from that point on he did all he could to learn about the new medium. In addition to covering political news in Washington, Nash also travelled around the United States and internationally. His many assignments included Nash also travelled back to Canada to cover Canadian political events for CBC, including television coverage of election night for

8178-405: Was obsessed with merging UP with the International News Service , a news agency that had been founded by William Randolph Hearst in 1909 following Scripps' lead. Bartholomew succeeded in putting the "I" in UPI in 1958 when UP and INS merged to become United Press International on May 24. The new UPI now had 6,000 employees and 5,000 subscribers, about a thousand of them newspapers. The merger

8272-782: Was on a trip to Kenya during the Mau Mau Uprising in 1954 that Nash also became a freelance foreign correspondent, sending several radio reports on the unrest to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) while he attended an IFAP conference in Nairobi . He continued to file freelance stories for the CBC and the Financial Post while travelling abroad, and became

8366-520: Was on assignment or on vacation. Nash fully retired from CBC News after anchoring The National on November 28, 1992. After retirement from news-reading and reporting, Nash continued to host various programs on CBC Newsworld for several years. From 1990 to 2004, he was also host of the CBC's educational series News in Review . Nash was married four times, although his final marriage, to CBC personality Lorraine Thomson , lasted for 32 years. Nash blamed

8460-572: Was purchased in May 2000 by News World Communications , a media conglomerate founded by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon , which also owned The Washington Times and newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America. The next day, UPI's White House correspondent, Helen Thomas , resigned her position, after working for UPI for 57 years. In 2007, as part of a restructuring to keep UPI in business and profitable, management cut 11 staff from its Washington, D.C. office and no longer had

8554-553: Was renamed the United Press International Radio Network . But faced with recurring cash shortages and difficulty meeting payroll, the Ruhe-Geissler management sold UPI's foreign photo service and some rights to its US and foreign photos to the Reuters news agency. It also sold UPI's U.S. photo library, which included the archives of predecessor Scripps photo agency Acme and the pictures and negatives of International News Photos,

8648-657: Was right across the street from the White House —he would often see President Harry S Truman walking by with his Secret Service detail on noon-hour walks. Research for his work brought him in touch with many officials, and he quickly developed a network of contacts within Washington power circles. His work with IFAP made Nash a world traveller, with a dozen trips to Europe by steamship, plus visits to Mexico and Central America as well as Africa. It also brought him in contact with many notables, including Pope Pius XII , Dag Hammarskjöld , Lord Boyd Orr , Dwight D. Eisenhower and future Dutch prime minister Barend Biesheuvel . It

8742-510: Was taken over by the Nazi regime in 1934. The German Press Agency (dpa) in Germany was founded as a co-operative in Goslar on 18 August 1949 and became a limited liability company in 1951. Fritz Sänger was the first editor-in-chief . He served as managing director until 1955 and as managing editor until 1959. The first transmission occurred at 6 a.m. on 1 September 1949. Since the 1960s,

8836-445: Was wrong." Nash believed in the power of television to educate Canadians about their own history, and was instrumental in getting several series of " docudramas " on air despite protests from the entertainment and drama department that he was treading on their turf. These included the critically acclaimed The National Dream in 1974, about the politics behind the building of the transcontinental railway ; The Tenth Decade , about

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