Talk:United Press International

Key UP / UPI product and technical innovation dates - use of teleprinter
These are the issues with the article text and reference regarding the use of the teleprinter by UP.

The sentence originally read, "...In 1914 UP is the first to use the teletype, a new invention that year...."

This is incorrect for the following reasons:
 * 1) In 1914, only Morkum and Kleinschmidt were producing printing telegraph equipment.  The device could not have been a teletype.
 * 2) The reference, which has it's own issues which I will describe below, notes that the device was delivered from Kleinschmidt.
 * 3) The "teletype" (printing telegraph) was not a new invention in 1914. Krum had a printing telegraph in trials in 1908 and in commercial use by Postal Telegraph between Boston and New York City in 1910.

The sentence currently reads, "...In 1915 UP begins to use the teleprinter, more commonly known as the Teletype, originally a trademark of one of its manufacturers..."

This is also incorrect for these reasons:


 * 1) The word "teletype" was derived from "telegraptype" but not in 1914-1915.
 * 2) The sentence uses 1915 but one of the references states 1914 as the use date and the second reference does not produce readable text.
 * 3) While factual, the comment about the trademark status of the word "teletype' is not relevant in this sentence or in this article about United Press International.
 * 4) the phrase "...more commonly known as the Teletype..." begs the question by whom and at what date. If now, perhaps within North America but not in other parts of the world where Creed, Siemens & Halske, Lorentz, and Olivetti were commonly used. And, this would not have been true in 1914.  The device was not even called a Teletype in 1914. And, it would not be capitalized since the Registered Trademark was not applied for until the 1920s.
 * If, in fact, UP did not begin use of the Kleinschmidt device until 1915, the entire sentence should be removed from the United Press International article since AP is documented to be using the Morkrum Green Code Version on Western Union Lines in New York City 1914 and there is no product or technical innovation here at all.

And, the reference issues:

1. The UPI History: Milestones (1911-1920) at http://100years.upi.com/history_ms_1911.html states:

A. Edward Kleinschmidt invents the teletype, which replaces Morse code clickers in delivering news to newspapers. Press critic Oswald GarrisonVillard credits United Press with first use of the teletype.

This has the following factual error:

Kleinschmidt was not the sole inventor of the teletype, if he were the inventor at all. In 1903, Charles Krum filed a ‘typebar page printer’ that was issued in 1908. In 1904, Charles Krum filed a patent for a ‘type wheel printing telegraph machine’ which was issued in August, 1907. I cannot find earlier patents filed by Kleinschmidt.

In addition, while the statement is made that Press critic Oswald Garrison Villard credits United Press with first use of the teletype, there is contrary evidence dating back to 1908 - 1910 that Charles and Howard Morkum had working systems in place. 2. The UPI History: Milestones (1911-1920) at http://100years.upi.com/history_ms_1911.html also has a photograph that is titled, "...1914: UPI Teletype..." Unfortunately, the equipment in the picture is a Teletype Corporation Model 15 that was not in production until 1930.

Two proposals:

1. Change the current sentence to read: In 1914 UP uses the teleprinter, now commonly known as the teletype.

This restores the 1914 date of the reference, removes the link to the word "Teletype" which only redirects to Teleprinter anyway, changes the case of teletype, and removes the Registered Trademark information about teletype since it is not relevant.

2. Strike the sentence completely since the reference is flawed as to first use of a teletype which changes this to an event and not a technical innovation.

More research is needed here, especially to determine a solid reference as to which Kleinschmidt device was in use at UP, what communications common carrier was involved, where and how many teleprinters were deployed.Wa3frp (talk) 11:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

CHANGES MADE In agreement with above, that sentence was changed to reflect them and clarify word usage. User:tfnews —Preceding undated comment added 13:28, 23 August 2011 (UTC).

CHANGES MADE

sentence changed to "...In 1915 UP begins to use teleprinters, more recently known as Teletype machines..." to refelect info provided above and remove non-relevant trademark info. Note: The 1915 date is not confiremed and more research is still needed here.Wa3frp (talk) 13:56, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

COI tag
Someone has place a COI tag at the top of the article. Can they explain which editor has the Conflict of Interest? Jayjg (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

My father, RIP
My father, Joel Landau, was a Photojournalist with UPI for about twenty-five years, although I don't see any mention of him anywhere. I would be happy to supply any information that I can, however, his co-workers on Downhold.org would be able to provide much more work-related information and stories.

Thank you.

Jay Landau — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayland49 (talk • contribs) 04:06, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Webportal down for prolonged time
As far as i can tell, the webportal upi.com seems to be down now for a full week. I tried several online checkers or a simple ping. The server is up at least sometimes, responding with an explanationless 'Last updated .... sorry for the inconvenience' message. Can anybody verify this ? If a popular portal like this is really down then shouldn't there be any net talk ? But i can't find anything either ! --rosetta — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:fdd711:d315:5a94:6bff:fef6:2be4 (talk) 20:54, 14 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Adding a date reference to rosetta's comment: My RSS news feed reader started throwing error message for UPI feeds on May 9, 2021. Likewise, a date-limited Google search for "UPI" turns up no News results since May 9. And like rosetta, I haven't found any net talk about this. Very strange. Ginahoy (talk) 16:24, 15 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Less than a half-day after my previous post, UPI's website and RSS feeds are live again. I should do this more often! NOTE: UPI's Twitter feed was never down. Ginahoy (talk) 02:22, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:UPI (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 00:32, 16 March 2023 (UTC)