The San Francisco Examiner
 |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
|---|
| Owner(s) | San Francisco Media Company LLC |
|---|
| Publisher | Glenn Zuehls |
|---|
| Editor | Michael Howerton |
|---|
| Founded | 1863, as Democratic Press |
|---|
| Headquarters | 835 Market Street, Suite 550
San Francisco, California 94103 |
|---|
| Circulation | 75,009 M/T/W;
190,088 Thursday
101,369 Friday
255,527 Sunday
[1] |
|---|
| Website | www.sfexaminer.com |
|---|
The San Francisco Examiner is a longtime
daily newspaper distributed in and around
San Francisco, California. The
Examiner is one of the pioneers in the industry and has been published continuously since the late 19th century.
The longtime "Monarch of the Dailies" and
flagship of the
Hearst Corporation chain, the
Examiner converted to free distribution early in the 21st century and is now owned by the San Francisco Media Company LLC.
History[edit]
19th century[edit]
The
Examiner was founded in 1863 as the
Democratic Press, a pro-
Confederacy, pro-slavery, pro-Democrat party paper opposed to
Abraham Lincoln, but after his assassination in 1865, the paper's offices were destroyed by a mob, and starting on June 12, 1865, it was called the
Daily Examiner.
[1][2][3]
Hearst acquisition[edit]
In 1880, mining engineer and entrepreneur
George Hearst bought the
Examiner. Seven years later, after being elected to the U.S. Senate, he gave it to his son,
William Randolph Hearst, who was then 23 years old. The elder Hearst "was said to have received the failing paper as partial payment of a poker debt."
[4]
20th century[edit]
San Francisco Examiner front page, Friday, February 27, 1942
William Randolph Hearst created the masthead with the "Hearst Eagle" and the slogan Monarch of the Dailies.
Hearst Building, San Francisco
After the great earthquake and fire of 1906 destroyed much of San Francisco, the
Examiner and its rivals — the
San Francisco Chronicleand the
San Francisco Call — brought out a joint edition. The
Examiner offices were destroyed on April 18, 1906,
[6] but when the city was rebuilt, a new structure, the Hearst Building, arose in its place at Third and Market streets. It opened in 1909, and in 1937 the facade, entranceway and lobby underwent an extensive remodeling designed by architect
Julia Morgan.
[7]
Through the middle third of the twentieth century, the
Examiner was one of several dailies competing for the city's and the Bay Area's readership; the San Francisco
News, the San Francisco
Call-Bulletin, and the
Chronicle all claimed significant circulation, but ultimately attrition left the
Examiner one chief rival — the
Chronicle. Strident competition prevailed between the two papers in the 1950s and 1960s; the
Examiner boasted, among other writers, such columnists as veteran sportswriter Prescott Sullivan, the popular
Herb Caen, who took an eight-year hiatus from the
Chronicle (1950–1958), and
Kenneth Rexroth, one of the best-known men of California letters and a leading
San Francisco Renaissance poet, who contributed weekly impressions of the city from 1960 to 1967. Ultimately, circulation battles ended in a merging of resources between the two papers.
For 35 years starting in 1965, the
San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner operated under a
Joint Operating Agreement whereby the
Chronicle published a morning paper and the
Examiner published in the afternoon. The
Examiner published the Sunday paper's news sections and glossy magazine, and the
Chronicle contributed the features. Circulation was approximately 100,000 on weekdays and 500,000 on Sundays. By 1995, discussion was already brewing in print media about the possible shuttering of the
Examiner due to low circulation and an extremely disadvantageous revenue sharing agreement for the
Chronicle.
[8]
In its stylebook, the Examiner has traditionally referred to San Francisco as "The City", capitalized, both in headlines and text of stories, and continues to do so. San Francisco slang has traditionally referred to the Examiner in abbreviated slang form as "the Ex" (and the Chronicle as "the Chron").
21st century[edit]
Fang acquisition[edit]
When the
Chronicle Publishing Company divested its interests, the
Hearst Corporation purchased the
Chronicle. To satisfy
antitrustconcerns, Hearst sold the
Examiner to ExIn, LLC, a corporation owned by the politically connected Fang family, publishers of the
San Francisco Independent and the
San Mateo Independent.
[9] San Francisco political consultant Clint Reilly filed a lawsuit against Hearst, charging that the deal did not ensure two competitive newspapers and was instead a generous deal designed to curry approval. However, on July 27, 2000 a federal judge approved the Fangs' assumption of the
Examiner name, its archives, 35 delivery trucks, and a subsidy of $66 million, to be paid over three years.
[10] From their side, the Fangs paid Hearst $100.00 for the Examiner.
On February 24, 2003, the
Examiner became a
free daily newspaper and is now printed Sunday through Friday.
Anschutz acquisition[edit]
On February 19, 2004, the Fang family sold the
Examiner and its printing plant, together with the two
Independent newspapers, to
Philip Anschutzof
Denver, Colorado.
[9] His new company, Clarity Media Group, launched
The Washington Examiner in 2005 and published
The Baltimore Examiner from 2006 to 2009. In 2006, Anschutz donated the archives of the
Examiner to the
University of California, Berkeley Bancroft Library, the largest gift ever to the library.
[11]
Under Clarity ownership, the
Examiner pioneered a new business model
[12] for the newspaper industry. Designed to be read quickly, the
Examineris presented in a compact,
tabloid size without story jumps. It focuses on local news, business, entertainment and sports with an emphasis on content relevant to local readers. It is delivered free to select neighborhoods in
San Francisco and
San Mateo counties, and to single-copy outlets throughout
San Francisco,
San Mateo,
Santa Clara, and
Alameda counties,
California.
By February 2008, the company had transformed the newspaper's
examiner.com domain into a national
hyperlocal brand with local websites throughout the United States.
[13]
Independent ownership[edit]
Clarity Media sold the
Examiner to San Francisco Newspaper Company LLC in 2011. The company's investors included then-President and Publisher Todd Vogt, Chief Financial Officer Pat Brown, and
David Holmes Black.
[citation needed] Early, incorrect media reports stated that the paper was purchased by Black's company
Black Press.
[14] In 2014, Vogt sold his shares to Black Press.
[citation needed] Present-day owners of the Examiner also own the alt-weekly
SF Weekly.
[citation needed]
Editions[edit]
In the early 20th century, an edition of the Examiner circulated in the East Bay under the Oakland Examiner masthead. Into the late 20th century, the paper circulated well beyond San Francisco. In 1982, for example, the Examiner's zoned weekly supplements within the paper were titled "City, "Peninsula," "Marin/Sonoma" and "East Bay." Additionally, during the late 20th Century, an edition of the Examiner was made available in Nevada which, coming out in the morning rather than in the afternoon as the mothership San Francisco edition did, would feature news content from the San Francisco edition of the day before ~ For instance, Tuesday's news in the Nevada edition that came out on Wednesday ~ but with dated non-hard news content ~ comic strips, feature columnists ~ for Wednesday.
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