UPI's Objectives and Control
United Press International is the world's largest privately owned news service. Its services go directly to more than 7,000 subscribers in 92 countries and to several thousand more through the 39 national and other news agencies it serves outside the United States.
UPI's services are available to any reputable publication, broadcaster or news agency which will pay for them. UPI is not influenced in its treatment of the news by the editorial policies nor the political inclinations of the wide variety of subscribers it serves. On the contrary, there is in UPI an enormous respect for news as such--an inflexible belief in the need to report the news of the world factually, truthfully and without bias.
UPI has no politics, carries no torches, conducts no crusades and is beholden to no government, no political party, no economic entity other than its own ownership. It merely reports.
Even its ownership exerts no editorial control over UPI's product. Although UPI is privately owned and organized for profit as well as to support the journalistic ideals of its founder and its owners, it has not returned a dividend to its stockholders in more than 20 years. It has upheld those ideals and will continue to do so.
Ownership and Management
UPI is principally owned by the E.W. Scripps Co., which also owns the Scripps-Howard Newspapers, United Feature Syndicate, Newspaper Enterprise Association, the World Almanac and is the principal stockholder in the Scripps- Howard Broadcasting Co. The Hearst Corporation has held a small minority interest in UPI since 1958 when Hearst's International News Service was consolidated with United Press to form UPI.
UPI operations are directed from its world headquarters at 220 East 42nd Street, New York, N.Y. 10017. The president and chief executive officer is Roderick W. Beaton, who was elected to this post in 1972 after assignments both in the United States and abroad. He has spent his entire career with UPI, which he joined in 1948 as a reporter. Robert E. Page is vice president and general manager. H.L. Stevenson is vice president and editor-in-chief. Frank Tremaine, senior vice president, supervises international operations.
The news operation in the U.S. is directed from New York through nine regional news centers, each responsible for coverage of and service to its particular geographic area. Administratively, the country is divided into three zones: Western, Central and Eastern. Each is headed by a marketing vice president whose staffs of general and regional executives are responsible for sales and client relations in their states.
There are six international divisions. The vice president and general manager for Europe/Africa/Middle East division is located in London where the division news editor and news desk are located. Communications headquarters and the division switching computer are located in Brussels.
Asia division headquarters are in Hong Kong under the direction of the vice president and general manager for Asia. The vice president and general manager for Latin America operates from New York, while the headquarters for Mexico/Central America are in Mexico City. UPI's Caribbean headquarters are in San Juan, P.R., and the Canadian headquarters in Montreal.
Many nationalities are represented on the staffs and in the management of UPI bureaus around the world and many of the senior executives of the company have had considerable experience overseas, including Beaton, Page and Tremaine.