Tony Bowe Asks about Bill Bowe’s Time with United Press International
In this segment of his conversation with his cousin, Tony Bowe asks Bill about his rollercoaster ride after organizing the first internal law department of the newswire service United Press International. Bill begins by talking about the founding of UPI by newspaper chain owner E.W. Scripps in 1907 and its decades long competition with its larger rival, the Associated Press. He goes on to describe the beginning of UPI’s decline as more and more in the 1970s advertising dollars moved away from newspapers to television, with the consequence that UPI’s customer base of afternoon newspaper had begun to die off. Bill winds up by discussing UPI’s sale to two cash poor, avaricious and inept Nashville entrepreneurs. He notes their prime role in UPI’s bankruptcy not long after they had purchased UPI from the E.W. Scripps heirs for $1. Bill finishes this part of his talk with Tony by relating how he left UPI as General Counsel as it successfully emerged from bankruptcy and he moved back to Chicago with his family to become General Counsel of Encyclopaedia Britannica.
