Since the first of several sales and staff cutbacks in 1982, and the 1999 sale of its broadcast client list to its main US rival, the Associated Press, UPI has concentrated on smaller information-market niches.
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20 Facts About UPI
2.
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.
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3.
Since its sale in 1982, UPI has changed ownership several times and was twice in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.
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4.
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.
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5.
In 2000, UPI was purchased by News World Communications, an international news media company founded in 1976 by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon.
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6.
UPI's content is presented in text, video and photo formats, in English, Spanish, and Arabic.
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7.
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,.
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8.
UPI had an advantage of independence over the AP in reporting on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
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9.
UPI did not have that sort of pressure, and management, according to UPI reporters and photographers of the day, allowed them much freedom in chronicling the events of the civil rights struggle.
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10.
UPI famously scooped the AP in reporting the assassination of US President John Kennedy on Friday, November 22,1963.
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11.
UPI White House reporter Merriman Smith was an eyewitness, and he commandeered 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.
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12.
UPI Audio actuality service for radio stations, created in 1958 and later renamed 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.
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13.
UPI came close to equaling 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 the AP.
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14.
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.
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15.
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.
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16.
UPI had begun to sell Internet-adapted products to such websites as Excite and Yahoo.
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17.
De Borchgrave maintained that "what was brilliant pioneering work on the part of UPI prior to World War II, with radio news, is a static quantity and so far as I'm concerned, certainly doesn't fit into my plans for the future".
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18.
UPI 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.
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19.
The rump UPI thus sold the client list of its still-significant radio network and broadcast wire to its former rival, the AP.
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20.
UPI was purchased in May 2000 by News World Communications, a media conglomerate founded by Unification movement founder Sun Myung Moon, which owned The Washington Times and newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America.
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