UPI Receives Reprieve at Last Minute : Media: New York lawyer Leon Charney, who also produces a television show, puts up $180,000 to keep the wire service going until he decides whether to buy it.

A day before its threatened closing, United Press International said Thursday that a New York lawyer has agreed to keep the 85-year-old news service going while he considers bidding for its assets.

UPI officials had said the company would go out of business at midnight today unless a buyer could be found.

Steve Geimann, UPI’s executive vice president and editor, said the last-minute offer was made by Leon Charney, who described himself as a lawyer specializing in banking, real estate and finance. He heads Charney Communications Network, which produces the “Leon Charney Report,” broadcast Sundays in New York.

He served as an unofficial special adviser to President Carter, especially during the Camp David peace talks.

Charney said in a telephone interview that he would provide $180,000 to keep the company going until June 22.

It was the latest in a series of near-deaths for UPI, which is operating under bankruptcy court supervision.

Before the announcement Thursday afternoon, UPI employees had continued their usual reporting, editing and other assignments but had expressed little hope that the news service would survive.

“We are trying to keep going as best we can, but we are also realizing that the stories we are writing could be among our last,” said Doug Levy, a reporter who is an officer of the Wire Service Guild.

“We are not making a whole lot of plans for coverage next week at the moment,” Levy said Thursday morning.

Geimann said Charney “expects to make a bid for all or substantially all of UPI’s assets.” He will make a decision by the end of the month, Geimann added.

Dennis O’Dea, lead attorney for UPI’s creditors, said he was concerned that UPI not drain its assets further while waiting for another buyer to make up his mind.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, who made a $6-million offer for the company in a federal bankruptcy court in New York last month, exercised his option Wednesday to withdraw the offer after going over the books.

“It costs a lot of money to keep a wire service running,” O’Dea said. “It doesn’t take a month to get to know this company.”

Charney said, “We want to take the basis of what they were and transform it into a high-tech communications company.”

O’Dea said he had little information about Charney, but added: “The company does seem to believe he has access to capital and the ability to close, and that’s what’s important.”

The agreement to keep UPI going is to be signed in New York today, Geimann said.

The company is $60 million in debt.

At midday, Geimann had said: “There has been a steady stream of calls from people asking, ‘What will it take to keep UPI alive?’ Those discussions are being followed up; nobody is being sent away.”

Bruce Collins, vice president and general counsel of C-Span, the public affairs cable network, said its officials were among those calling but were not seeking to buy UPI.

“I think all news organizations are interested in the assets that might be there when the dust settles,” he said.

Most UPI employees were not talking.

“I don’t know where we are; I don’t know anything,” the news service’s veteran White House correspondent, Helen Thomas, said before the announcement of a prospective buyer.

Paychecks were distributed Thursday, a day after the news service’s chief executive, Pieter Van Bennekom, came to the news room and assured staff members that the checks would not bounce, Levy said.

“He said we must prepare for an orderly shutdown on Friday, while keeping all options open,” Levy said.

Levy said he and others in the newsroom had been taking such precautions as telephoning insurance agents to get health insurance lined up to replace their company policies if needed.

“People are a little distracted,” he said. “It’s hard not to be. People are making sure that they have each others’ addresses, and things like that.”

UPI has lost money for 30 years and is operating under bankruptcy court protection for the second time in a decade.

The news service was founded as United Press by E. W. Scripps in 1907. It has won nine Pulitzer prizes for reporting and photography.