What Is PR Newswire? We Explain Here

Chicago-based PR Newswire is a provider of press releases. Initially employing teleprinters, the service was developed in 1954 to enable businesses to electronically transmit press releases to news organisations.

For over 15 years, Herbert Muschel, the company’s creator, ran the business out of his Manhattan home. Eventually, Western Union and United Newspapers of London purchased the company. Cision Inc. made the announcement that it would buy the business in December 2015.

After 66 years, Cision officially incorporated PR Newswire into the business on January 1, 2021, ending its existence as a separate legal organisation. Cision intends to keep using the brand name in the United States, as well as in Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions, for the foreseeable future.

Herbert Muschel created PR Newswire in March 1954, and for the first 15 years of its existence, he managed it out of his townhouse in New York City. To provide content to a dozen news outlets in New York, the business used teleprinters and telephone lines controlled by Western Union. Trans World Airlines was its first client.

After the 1962–1963 New York City newspaper strike, Muschel hired David Steinberg from the New York Herald Tribune to accept a management role with the business.

As of 2022, both offices are still operating under Cision.

Dan Forbush, a former administrator at SUNY Stony Brook, launched ProfNet in 1992. When the university’s management changed in 1994, Forbush was unable to persuade them to keep the service functioning. ProfNet started charging institutions to join as a commercial service.

Other contacts worked at industrial laboratories like Bell Labs and societies like the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Many contacts were spokespeople for their institutions, rather than subject-matter experts themselves.