United Press International

a business organization of newspapers in the U.S., together with representatives abroad, for the reporting and interchange of news. Abbr.: UPI, U.P.I.

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▪ American news agency

      American-based news agency, one of the largest proprietary news wire services in the world. It was created in 1958 upon the merger of the United Press (UP; 1907) with the International News Service (INS). UPI and its precursor agencies pioneered in some key areas of news coverage, including the wired transmission of news photographs in 1925.

      In 1907 newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps (Scripps, Edward Willis) combined three regional news services under his control to sell news to all newspapers, not only those with a franchise (as had the Associated Press). Scripps made the enterprising Roy W. Howard the UP's general manager in 1912. Soon the agency established bureaus in major European capitals. It began to supply news to Latin-American papers during World War I. Throughout its history United Press stressed human-interest and feature news, and it developed the subsidiary United Features syndicate to sell special features. It also established UP Movietone News to supply news film to television stations.

      William Randolph Hearst (Hearst, William Randolph) had set up INS to provide news to morning newspapers. In 1928 other Hearst news services were merged into INS to enable it to provide around-the-clock service. It had about 2,000 domestic and foreign clients in 1958, when it was merged with UP, then much larger.

      The merged organization, by the late 20th century, served newspaper and telecommunications clients in the United States and other countries, transmitting in many languages over radio and leased wire facilities. As befell many of its clients, UPI found costs rising faster than revenues in the 1970s, and the number of subscribers dropped sharply. From 1982, UPI underwent a series of changes of ownership.

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