Talk:United Press International

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It's not surprising that Helen Thomas resigned from UPI after its acquisition by the Washington Times. It saved her from being fired.

Listen to the way she badgered the White House press secretary -- worming in patently false statements under the guise of a question:

Q I pick up on that -- what you said. Does it bother the President that most of the world is against this war, and half of America? And I have a follow-up.
MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, this is an issue where you and I will never agree when you state your premise about what the people think.
Q This isn't you and I. This is a very legitimate question.
Q There's a new poll showing --
MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, I think there's a lot of public polling that you can see out there. The recent poll from your neighbor to the right, ABC News showed that 79 percent of the American people think that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States. I've heard you say on many occasions most Americans don't think he's a threat to the United States.
Q I didn't say -- is said the war.
MR. FLEISCHER: So I understand your strong opinions clearly. I'm not sure the American people agree with you.
Q That's a very personal attack. I said the war. Are they in favor of --
MR. FLEISCHER: I thought it was an accurate observation.
Q Are you saying 79 percent of the American people are for this war?
MR. FLEISCHER: What I just said to you is that according to that ABC poll, 79 percent of the American people think that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States.
Q That wasn't what I asked you.
MR. FLEISCHER: In terms of support for a war, again, talking about the public polls, I saw one this morning in USA Today that put that figure at 66 percent, if I recall.
Source: [1]

--Uncle Ed 19:07 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

Old topic, but I feel compelled to comment. Fleischer was clearly attempting to skirt the issue and, like most of the Bush administration, did not answer the question that was asked. Helen did not "badger" him. Nelson Ricardo 02:44, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
Your answer is a year old, and just as incorrect now as it was then. Thomas was asserting that "half of America" was against the war, and Fleisher rebutted that assertion by citing a USA Today poll putting American support for the war at 66 percent. Since 66 + 50 > 100, eithor Thomas or Fleisher was mistaken. If Fleisher was correctly citing the USA poll, then Thomas was turning 33% into "most", which is dishonest. Uncle Ed 21:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Tired topic and for accuracy sake Helen was not going to be fired. stevensweet

Contents

[edit] Moonie Ownership of UPI

I believe it is imperative to prominently explain that a religious cult owns UPI these days. The head of that cult claims to be the Messiah. He may well be for all I know, and I make no judgments but it needs to be stated.

There is genuine confusion about this with the less-informed and the article can play a small part in remedying that. Libertas

Thanks for adding this, it's important. I have tightened and wikified the language. Readers interested in the details of Rev. Moon's claims about himself can consult his article. More fact-checking is needed on the Washington Times issue. RadicalSubversiv E 00:34, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, which one the ownership or the publication of UPI yarns. Happy to do either.Libertas

[edit] UPI Ownership and Helen Thomas

There are some who have an axe to grind about the Unification Church and it shows in the editing.

I am more interested in a factual representation and history of UPI to honor its journalists who stay true to its editorial mission of independent and unbiased reporting.

Grinding the ownership axe, chronically mentioning speculation about why Helen Thomas resigned, etc., is less about UPI and more about some issue with the ownership.

As any journalist at UPI will tell you, judge UPI on its content and not the ownership.

stevensweet

Information about UPI's ownership is encyclopedic. Deciding how to "judge" UPI is up to readers. Also, please refrain from marking non-trivial edits such as this as "minor" -- it's deceptive. RadicalSubversiv E 23:59, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. Deciding how to "judge" UPI is up to the readers. These are minor changes as this entry is about UPI not the ownership or Helen Thomas. Content and an "axe-to-grind" author bias is the deceptive issue.

stevensweet

[edit] External linked article about upcoming event

I removed that link, an article about a current event, because wikipedia isn't/can't be a breaking-news depository. The article will be out of date in a couple of weeks. If there is there material from the meeting that could be incorporated into the article, fine, but there are new articles every day affecting, oh, about 250,000 of wikipedia's articles. - DavidWBrooks 16:05, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Hardly. The link is revealing about the organisations, and isn't primarily about "the event". (Try reading it properly.) In any case it is currently relevant and will be for some time and can be removed when it isn't any more. Rd232 22:05, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
It's obviously inappropriate for an encyclopedia article, as compared to Usenet for a pro/con Web site (wait'll some Moonie posts a link to a pro-Moon article, and then somebody posts another anti, etc. etc.) but it's not worth an edit war. - DavidWBrooks 23:00, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
There are a few articles which have 'pro' and 'con' sections in the links (usually with neutral ones at the top). I don't have a problem with that, although in some cases the links do multiply rather. I see the External Links as supplementary to the article, and as long they're ordered and useful (i.e. of interest to readers), there's no need to be overly cautious in restricting them. Rd232 10:50, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Modifying the edit war and recognising that for some the history is second to the owner I made it a stand-alone section as the link is not a history link but a story link. stevensweet
Realising the edit war goes on I quote the anonymous Rd232 "Wikipedia convention is to use subsections (===) or no divisions for External links section)" and have moved this tiresome story link to a subsection of External links.

[edit] Ownership

This is a little embarassing. I ought to know this, after 28 years membership in the Unification Church. But does the church itself own UPI, Washington Times, or News World?

Or are these companies owned by individual members of the church? Uncle Ed 20:54, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure the church as a corporation does not own these companies. However the church as a body of believers does, in a sense. I considered changing this article but it seemed a little nit-picky.Steve Dufour 06:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
That seems odd: an ever-changing "body of believers" would have difficulty, say, paying taxes or submitting paperwork to show it doesn't need to pay taxes. Churches frequently own buildings/businesses, in the sense that the ruling body of the church - synod, board of directors, whatever - rather than the people who gather in the pews each week, is the legally responsible entity. So we need to be sure before making such a change. - DavidWBrooks 11:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
My understanding, I've been a UC member since 1974 but am not an accountant or a lawyer and live 3000 miles from DC, is that the Times is a corporation owned by some church members. It was Rev. Moon's idea so we often say he inspired it. I think most church members in the USA feel a sense of ownership towards the Times even if we or the church are not the legal owners.Steve Dufour 16:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Both Yahoo Finance and Hoover.com say in their capsule summaries of News World Communications that it "is a media company owned by the Unification Church, which is controlled by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon." I'm not sure exactly what "owned by the Unification Church" means, however. - DavidWBrooks 17:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not either. I don't think the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity HSA-UWC (the official name of the UC) owns News World Corp; however it is owned by the Unification Church movement or community. I'm in favor of leaving the statement as it stands. It is true, in one sense, and it is simple and clear.Steve Dufour 05:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC) p.s. The issue of ownership would seem more important if News World was making a profit.  :-)

[edit] External links - News/comment - Broken-dead-links 404

This message is to advise of broken links, if there is somewhere more appropiate to post this please advise.

The New York Times, Feb. 21, 1988 "NYT Story on FNN's Purchase of UPI in 1988" http://www.auburn.edu/~lowrygr/nytfnn.html gets the following result: 404 Not Found

George Garneau, Editor & Publisher, Oct. 21, 1989 "Infotech Now Owns UPI" http://www.auburn.edu/~lowrygr/e&p35.html 404 Not Found

Associated Press Story, June 28, 1992 "Middle East TV Network Purchases UPI" http://www.auburn.edu/~lowrygr/pat5.html 404 Not Found

Allan Wolper, Editor & Publisher, May 22, 2000 "UPI WILL STILL FLY UNDER OWN FLAG" http://www.auburn.edu/~lowrygr/moonie1.html 404 Not Found

Eve Gerber, Brills Content, April, 2001 "Looking for a Miracle" http://www.auburn.edu/~lowrygr/brill.html 404 Not Found

Please note all of the above pages can be viewed using The Wayback Machine http://www.archive.org/web/web.php just paste the URL you want to locate into the search form and click on one of the archived page links

Servant of the Cat 04:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reputable News Organization?

I was pretty shocked to see how far down UPI has come and I'd guess part of that is the Unification Church ownership. But actually I was most shocked when I learned about UPI employing Steve Sailer as a commentator. He seems to be a neo-eugenicist, i.e. racist, and a "paleoconservative," though I haven't seen anything quite that bad in his commentary at UPI. Is this a one-time fluke or is the whole organization morally bankrupt?

WP talk pages are not soapboxes or discussion forums, or places to review the subjects of its articles. Please read about what wikipedia is not, and keep talk page discussion directly relevant to the editing of the article at hand. Dsol 16:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I think the talk pages are actually discussion forums - look at the top tab.
Discussion relevant to editing only. Read the policy page I linked to if you didn't know this already. Please sign your posts. Dsol 17:49, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
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