U.P.I.: Look Back in Sorrow: Review

To stay alive, U.P. turned the traditional practice of skinflint journalism into an art form. As a young reporter for the service, the authors say, Walter Cronkite was taught by his bureau manager ''how to jiggle two pins through a phone cable to make the connection without having to deposit coins.'' David Brinkley, another alumnus, remarked when the company was foundering: ''I don't know how you could go bankrupt without ever spending anything, but they have managed it.'' With little real journalism experience, Mr. [Douglas Ruhe] and Mr. [William Geissler] were the first of an oddly assorted group of entrepreneurs who fought for control of U.P.I. The pair might not have had much experience, but they knew how to make a deal. To get U.P.I. off its hands, Scripps sold the service to them in 1982 for $1, and then tossed in a ''$5 million loan'' that, according to the authors, ''became an outright gift.'' The authors are at their best when they show their love for the company: ''If you didn't actually work for UPI, there was no way to fully comprehend the mysterious spell that compelled Unipressers to endure hardship and anguish beyond reason.'' And they lament, with good reason, that ''the rest of the news media seemed strangely unconcerned that the nation's competitive wire-service system was unraveling, that an important alternative voice was being stilled.''