E. W. Scripps

Newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps combined three regional news services to form the United Press Associations. UP's announcement on July 15 said: "It is announced that the United Press will not be run on narrow or monopolistic lines, but will seek to give fair and impartial service to all legitimate newspaper publishers in the field." Scripps later said: "I regard my life's greatest service to the people of this country to be the creation of the United Press," because the competition provided by UP prevented the Associated Press from having a monopoly in determining what news was provided to the public.

Roy W. Howard: Vice president and general manager of UP when it was formed in 1907, and President of UP beginning in 1912. (Courtesy of Bob Lowry)

Roy Howard, UP's innovative 27-year-old general manager, was never too busy for hands-on reporting and often dictated play-by-play accounts of baseball's World Series games. On July 4, he organized coverage of the Jack Johnson-Jim Jeffries heavyweight championship fight in Reno, Nevada. Knowing the arena would be loud, he purchased an ear trumpet, earpieces, and eight feet of rubber tubing. The ear trumpet allowed sportswriter Max Balthasar to dictate a concise running account of the fight to a telegraph operator filing for clients in the eastern United States, while another telegraph operator sitting beside Balthasar filed for western clients. The competition, meanwhile, filed based on written notes handed to telegraph operators. UP's coverage kept pace with the bout, and when Johnson won by knockout, UP was well ahead of the competition.