Business Wire is the global news distribution company owned by Berkshire Hathaway since 2006. Founded 1961 by Lorry I. Lokey in San Francisco. ~60,000 media outlets and financial terminals. Primary U.S. competitor to Cision's PR Newswire. SEC Reg FD compliance positioning.
Cision is the global communications company operating PR Newswire (founded 1954). Owned by Platinum Equity since 2020 (~$2.7B). Operates the Cision Communications Cloud, PR Newswire distribution, Brandwatch (acquired 2021 ~$450M), TrendKite. ~75,000 global customers.
The newswire was infrastructure for an internet of human readers. The new infrastructure is built for machines. How wire distribution economics, regulatory disclosure, and AI retrieval are reshaping the press release decision framework in 2026.