PR Newswire is a distributor of press releases headquartered in Chicago.[1] The service was created in 1954 to allow companies to electronically send press releases to news organizations, using teleprinters at first. The founder, Herbert Muschel, operated the service from his house in Manhattan for approximately 15 years. The business was eventually sold to Western Union and then United Newspapers of London.[2] In December 2015, Cision Inc. announced it would acquire the company.[3] On January 1, 2021, Cision formally merged PR Newswire into the company.
PR Newswire was founded in March 1954 by Herbert Muschel, who ran the business from his town house in New York City for the first 15 years of its operation.[4][2] The company used telecommunications lines and teleprinters owned by Western Union to distribute content to a dozen news organizations in New York.[2] Its first customer was Trans World Airlines.[2]
Muschel sold 81% of the company to Western Union in 1970 for over 60 thousand shares of letter stock,[6] with Muschel and Steinberg continuing to manage the company after the acquisition.[7] Steinberg served as vice president and chief of operations, and became president of the company in 1976.[5][8]
In 1977, PR Newswire began using electronic terminals for copy editing.[9][10]
By 1978, PR Newswire distributed content to approximately 250 news points and financial institutions in 75 cities using 12,000 miles of private transmission lines.[5] In addition to its New York headquarters, the service also sent content from offices in Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco at a rate of 150 words per minute.[5]
ABC-TV and Indesys partnered with PR Newswire in 1989 to provide news feeds to television and entertainment editors and writers in the U.S. and Canada.[13] Program changes, production schedules, and news from entertainment sources were transmitted over a satellite distribution network and an FM subcarrier.[13]
Steinberg retired in 1992, but continued as vice chairman until 2002.[14] During his tenure, the service became a state-of-the-art communications network with 700 employees.[14]
In 2000 the company acquired eWatch, founded in 1995 as an automated service to monitor websites, chat rooms, Usenet groups, web publications, online service forums and investor message boards for mentions of a specific organization, issue, product or service. In 2001, PR Newswire issued a multimedia news release for Touchstone Pictures promoting the film Pearl Harbor, which included b-roll, soundbites, high resolution images, and film trailer.[15] On April 17, 2007, PR Newswire acquired Vintage Filings.[16]
In December 2008, PR Newswire moved its New York City corporate headquarters from Midtown Manhattan to Lower Manhattan, at 350 Hudson Street.[17] In mid-2009, PR Newswire acquired The Fuel Team.[18] The largest competitor to PR Newswire is Business Wire, as of 2014[update].[19] On December 15, 2015, PR Newswire was sold to global media intelligence company, Cision, for $841 million.[3] The transaction, which required approval by the shareholders of UBM plc as well as regulatory approvals, was expected to close late in the first quarter of 2016. As of June 2016[update] (closing date of the deal) it became a subsidiary of Cision.[1]
In the 2010s, PR Newswire and its competitor Business Wire were the target of extensive successful attacks by Ukrainian hackers, who accessed not yet published press releases to enable insider trading.[20] According to the FBI, the case was then the world's largest known computer hacking and securities fraud, with profits exceeding $100 million in trades that were made public by the SEC, but believed to be vastly higher than that by the authorities. Fewer than half of over 100 suspects involved had been arrested as of 2018.[20]
ProfNet
ProfNet is an online community of communications professionals made to provide reporters access to expert sources and a subsidiary of PR Newswire. ProfNet was founded in 1992 by Dan Forbush, then an administrator at SUNY Stony Brook.[21] The original pilot program operated on CompuServe.[21] After the university changed administrations in 1994, Forbush was unable to convince them to continue running the service.[22] Forbush privatized ProfNet in 1995 and sold it to PR Newswire in March 1996.[21] As a commercial service, ProfNet began charging institutions to participate.[23][24] By the end of the following year, the distribution list included 2,800 contacts, mostly affiliated with colleges and universities.[22] Other contacts worked at industrial laboratories like Bell Labs and societies like the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[25] Many contacts were spokespeople for their institutions, rather than subject-matter experts themselves.[26][27]
A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. News agencies are known for their press releases. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, or news service.
UBM plc was a British business-to-business (B2B) events organiser headquartered in London, England, before its acquisition by Informa in 2018. It had a long history as a multinational media company. Its main focus was on B2B events, but its principal operations included live media and business-to-business communications, marketing services and data provision, and it principally served the technology, healthcare, trade and transport, ingredients and fashion industries. UBM was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
CNW Group Ltd., also called Canada Newswire and CNW, is a commercial press release service owned by Cision. Cision Distribution services in Canada are powered by Canada Newswire. The service is offered stand-alone or as part of its flagship Cision Communications Cloud platform for PR professionals.
Genworth Financial, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, provides life insurance, long-term care insurance, mortgage insurance, and annuities.
Ally Financial Inc. is a bank holding company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered at Ally Detroit Center in Detroit, Michigan. The company provides financial services including car finance, online banking via a direct bank, corporate lending, vehicle insurance, mortgage loans, and other related financing services such as installment sale and lease agreements.
TheStreet is a financial news and financial literacy website. It is a subsidiary of The Arena Group. The company provides both free content and subscription services such as Action Alerts Plus, a stock recommendation portfolio co-managed by Bob Lang and Chris Versace. TheStreet was founded by Marty Peretz and Jim Cramer, and the site boasts numerous notable former contributors, including Aaron Task, Herb Greenberg, and Brett Arends.
Bausch Health Companies Inc. is an American-Canadian multinational specialty pharmaceutical company based in Laval, Quebec, Canada. It develops, manufactures and markets pharmaceutical products and branded generic drugs, primarily for skin diseases, gastrointestinal disorders, eye health and neurology. Bausch Health owns Bausch & Lomb, a supplier of eye health products. Bausch Health's business model is primarily focused on acquiring small pharmaceutical companies and then sharply increasing the prices of the drugs these companies sell.
Innovate Corp. is an American public financial services company founded in 1994.
CIT Group (CIT), a subsidiary of First Citizens BancShares, is an American financial services company. It provides financing, including factoring, cash management, treasury management, mortgage loans, Small Business Administration loans, leasing, and advisory services principally to individuals, middle-market companies and small businesses, primarily in North America. Under the reporting mark CEFX, it leases locomotives and railroad cars to rail transport and shipping companies in North America. It also operates a direct bank. In January 2022, CIT was acquired by First Citizens BancShares.
U.S. Newswire was a U.S. national news release wire service established in 1986 which distributed media materials for a variety of customers, particularly the U.S. government and non-profit agencies. U.S. Newswire was based in Washington, D.C. and was acquired from Medialink by PR Newswire on October 1, 2006.
EQT Corporation is an American energy company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and pipeline transport. It is headquartered in EQT Plaza in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Cision Ltd. is a public relations and earned media software company and services provider. The company is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Noble Energy, Inc. was a company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration headquartered in Houston, Texas. In October 2020, the company was acquired by Chevron Corporation.
Questar Corporation was a natural gas public utility based in Salt Lake City, Utah. In September 2016, the company was acquired by Dominion Resources.
Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American asset management firm that primarily invests in alternative assets. As of 2022, the company had $548 billion of assets under management, including $392 billion invested in credit, including mezzanine capital, hedge funds, non-performing loans, and collateralized loan obligations, $99 billion invested in private equity, and $46.2 billion invested in real assets, which includes real estate and infrastructure. The company invests money on behalf of pension funds, financial endowments, and sovereign wealth funds, as well as other institutional and individual investors.
Primus Telecommunications Pty Ltd. is an Australian telecommunications company and wholly owned subsidiary of Vocus Communications that primarily focuses on fixed, mobile, and broadband services.
Washington Prime Group Inc. is an American real estate investment trust that invests in shopping centers. The company is organized in Indiana with its headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. From January 2015 to September 2016, the company had the name WP Glimcher. On June 13, 2021, Washington Prime filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
David Steinberg was a journalist for the New York Herald Tribune and president of PR Newswire. He received the first distinguished business journalism award for newspapers in 1958.
One80 Intermediaries is a specialty insurance brokerage firm with offices in the US and Canada. The firm was founded in 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts.
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