The Wilmington morning star., 1944-12-17
The United Press

A few DAYS ago we announced that United
Press leased wire day and night service had
been purchased that readers of this newspaper,
the Star and the News might have the wider
coverage of great events it's skilled cor-espcr-
dents provide The service will be started as
soon as installation of equipment is completed.
In the meantime it is appropriate to tell o!lr
readers something about the organization, its
start expansion and record
cable and short-wave radio to 1873 newspapers
and 524 radio broadcasters in the United States
and in spite of war, its reports are supplied
to some $40 foreign clients for publication and
broadcast in q languages.
The story of United Press had its beginning
at the turn of the century. Americas news
papers already had established a proud record
for sound, factual reporting. Publishers gen
erallv had built their regulations by giving
their readers the truth-reporting local events
accurately and reporting them all,
But the ability of publishers to fix the stan
dards of their new was limited to the areas
and events covered by their respective staffs.
Over national and foreign news they had little
or no supervision.
Responsible publishers chafed at having to
rely on reports which fell so short of the stan
dards of honesty and completeness they had
established for their local stats. They were
faced with decision. Either they would have
to go on publishing dispatches of doubtful &C.
curacy or arrange to gather their own world
news
A group of them chose the latter course. By
combining and organizing three OF the strong
est and most reliable sectional news organl-
zations these publishers created the United
Press.
The three were the Publishers Press, the
Press Associations and the
Scripps News Association The Sc-ipps-McRae
association was serving newspapers OF the Mid
die West. while the Scripps News Association
had confined it's operations to the Pacific coast.
The two had cooperated, in exchanging news
and maintaining news bureaus in Europe, with
the Publishers Press. which served papers
along the Atlantic seaboard.
On June 81, 1907, they were merged to form
the United Press Associations.
During it's early years, the United Press
fought an uphill battle against heavy odds.
Renouncing all the large, established foreign
news services United Press set about the task
of building its own foreign bureaus and estab-
fishing it's own communication circuits.
Two years after it began supplying news to
American newspapers United Press in 1909 won
its first clients abroad brief, crisp cable file
began moving across the Pacific to Nippon
Dempo Tsushin Sha CThe Japanese Telegraph
News Agency, and across the Atlantic to the
London Exchange Telegraph
By 1914, when the first World War began,
United Press had established itself at home and
was beg inning to make itself felt abroad. It's
foreign news bureaus were growing in num-
bers and were strongly stated by capable.
thoroughly trained correspondents. United
Press was ready for the biggest story it ever
had been called upon to cover, and it did the
job well. Its dispatches were cologtul, dramatic
and filled with stories that personalized the
war for the people who had remained black
home" while the Yanks were fighting cover
there.
And United Press during those years began
another phase of important expansion d
growth The newspapers of Latin America, and
particularly those of Brazil, Argentina and
Chile found themselves almost completely de-
pendent for war and general European cover
age on the dispatches of Agence Havas, the
French subsidized agency which provided only
one-sided news picture All other services,
including Associated Press, were required by
the agreement not to invade that field in COM
petition with Havas
United Press was asked to produce for Latin
America special European service-unbiased
neutral. objective, and tackled the assignment
with will. Coverage arrangements and COM
munic ations problems we're ironed out and in
1916 United Press began service to La Prensa
of Buenos Aires, one OF the worlds five most
newspapers. the objectivity and
completeness of the U. P. report rapidly won
other clients among Latin Americas great
newspapers, and the service grew until today
United Press pours upwards of 1000, 600 words
OF news annually across the desks of news
papers in South and Central America
From that hooppipo tho corvico m Tho mn,