UPDATE 1-Unification Church arm acquires UPI
Updated 4:35 PM ET May 15, 2000
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Unification Church affiliate that
owns the Washington Times newspaper has acquired United Press
International wire service which broke the news of President John
Kennedy's assassination but has since fallen on hard times, the
agency said Monday.
UPI said in an article Monday that News World Communications,
established by Unification Church head Rev. Sun Myung Moon,
"plans to maintain UPI as an independent news-gathering
operation, while upgrading its capacity with new technologies and
distribution practices."
Since it was established by Moon in 1982, the Washington Times
has provided a consistently conservative editorial voice in the
nation's capital. Moon also lists on his Internet site newspapers
in Seoul, Tokyo, Montevideo, Athens, Los Angeles and New York.
UPI reached its peak in the late 1950s when it had some 5,000
newspaper and broadcast clients. Over the next several decades
the client base shrank. UPI recently sold its once-powerful
broadcast division to its long-time rival, the Associated Press.
In recent years UPI has been most famous for its chief White
House reporter, Helen Thomas, the dean of presidential
journalists who has covered every president since Kennedy.
"Unipressers" in their heyday were some of the best known
bylines in American journalism. The wire service's alumni
included Walter Cronkite, Howard K. Smith, David Brinkley, Eric
Sevareid and Harrison Salisbury.
UPI scored numerous coups in journalism, perhaps most notably
its beat over AP of the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination of Kennedy.
Veteran UPI White House correspondent Merriman Smith seized
the only phone on the press car in the presidential motorcade and
refused to relinquish it to his AP counterpart, Jack Bell.
The first word of the assassination to the rest of the world
was Smith's and he went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for his
reporting.
But there were gaffes as well, such as an April 28, 1986
report that 2,000 people had been killed in the Chernobyl nuclear
accident and a "beat" on the signing of the Armistice ending
World War I that moved four days before the ink went on the paper
Nov. 11, 1918.
United Press was launched June 21, 1907, by newspaper magnate
Edward Wyllis Scripps in part because he wanted a news agency to
serve his afternoon dailies that the morning-paper oriented AP
would not serve.
Thus began a long competitive rivalry with the larger, richer
AP that often was one of the most intense of American journalism.
In May 1958 United Press merged with the third major U.S. wire
service, William Randolph Hearst's International News Service.
Known as United Press International and now armed with many of of
INS' well-known correspondents around the world, UPI set out to
challenge the AP.
But it started losing money within four years and never
stopped. Battered by the rise of television news and the
shrinking number of afternoon newspapers -- the backbone of the
wire service's news report -- UPI shrank in size and kept losing
money.
Still there were days of glory left. UPI won six more Pulitzer
Prizes in reporting and photography in addition to Smith's and
called the 1976 presidential election of Jimmy Carter before any
other news organization.
After trying for years to unload UPI to a reputable news
organization, UPI's owner, the Scripps Howard newspaper chain
paid two inexperienced Nashville, Tennessee, entrepreneurs, Doug
Ruhe and Bill Geisler, $5 million to take it in 1982.
The two presided over a news agency that hemorrhaged money,
lost clients and sold off assets -- including its overseas news
pictures operation to Reuters -- and eventually had to file for
bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11.
Over the next decade UPI changed hands three times -- first
being sold to Mexican publisher Mario Vazquez-Rana, then to
California venture capitalist Earl Brian.
UPI has been owned by a group of Saudi Arabian businessmen
since 1992.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
=================================================================
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths,
misdirections
and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and
minor
effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said,
CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
<A HREF="http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
