PR Newswire

PR Newswire is a distributor of press releases headquartered in Chicago. 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. In December 2015, Cision Inc. announced it would acquire the company. On January 1, 2021, Cision formally merged PR Newswire into the company, ending its status as a legal entity after 66 years. Cision plans to continue utilizing the brand name for the foreseeable future in the United States, as well as in Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions. 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. The company used telecommunications lines and teleprinters owned by Western Union to distribute content to a dozen news organizations in New York. Its first customer was Trans World Airlines. In 1963, Muschel recruited David Steinberg of the New York Herald Tribune to take a management position with the company after the 1962–1963 New York City newspaper strike. Muschel had been impressed by Steinberg's use of the service to report financial news during the strike without using reporters. Muschel sold 81% of the company to Western Union in 1970 for over 60 thousand shares of letter stock, with Muschel and Steinberg continuing to manage the company after the acquisition. Steingberg served as vice president and chief of operations, and became president of the company in 1976. In 1977, PR Newswire began using electronic terminals for copy editing. 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. 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.