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 Front page for February 2, 1922 | |
| Type | Newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner |
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| Founded |
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| Headquarters | 465 California St. Suite 1600 San Francisco, CA 94104 |
| ISSN | 2574-593X |
| Website | sfexaminer |
TheSan Francisco Examiner is anewspaper distributed in and aroundSan Francisco,California, and has been published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-ownerWilliam Randolph Hearst and theflagship of theHearst chain,[1] theExaminer converted to free distribution early in the 21st century and is owned by Clint Reilly Communications, which bought the newspaper at the end of 2020 along with theSF Weekly.[2]
TheExaminer was founded in 1863 as theDemocratic Press, a pro-Confederacy, pro-slavery, pro-Democratic Party paper opposed toAbraham Lincoln, but after his assassination in 1865, the paper's offices were destroyed by a mob, and starting on June 12, 1865, it was calledThe Daily Examiner.[3][4][5]
In 1880, mining engineer and entrepreneurGeorge Hearst bought theExaminer. Seven years later, after being elected to theU.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."[6]
William Randolph Hearst hiredS.S. (Sam) Chamberlain, who had started the first American newspaper in Paris, as managing editor[5] and Arthur McEwen as editor, and changed theExaminer from an evening to a morning paper.[3] Under him, the paper's popularity increased greatly, with the help of such writers asAmbrose Bierce,Mark Twain, and the San Francisco–bornJack London.[7] It also found success through its version ofyellow journalism, with ample use of foreign correspondents and splashy coverage of scandals such as two entire pages of cables from Vienna about theMayerling Incident;[5] satire; and patriotic enthusiasm for theSpanish–American War and the1898 annexation of thePhilippines. William Randolph Hearst created the masthead with the "Hearst Eagle" and the sloganMonarch of the Dailies by 1889, at the latest.
After thegreat earthquake and fire of 1906 destroyed much of San Francisco, theExaminer and its rivals—theSan Francisco Chronicle and theSan Francisco Call—brought out a joint edition. TheExaminer offices were destroyed on April 18, 1906,[8] 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 extensive remodeling designed by architectJulia Morgan.[9]
Through the middle third of the twentieth century, theExaminer was one of several dailies competing for the city's and the Bay Area's readership; theSan FranciscoNews, theSan FranciscoCall-Bulletin, and theChronicle all claimed significant circulation, but ultimately attrition left theExaminer one chief rival—theChronicle. Strident competition prevailed between the two papers in the 1950s and 1960s; theExaminer boasted, among other writers, such columnists as veteran sportswriter Prescott Sullivan, the popularHerb Caen, who took an eight-year hiatus from theChronicle (1950–1958), andKenneth Rexroth, one of the best-known men of California letters and a leadingSan 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, theSan Francisco Chronicle and Examiner operated under ajoint operating agreement whereby theChronicle published a morning paper and theExaminer published in the afternoon. TheExaminer published the Sunday paper's news sections and glossy magazine, and theChronicle 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 theExaminer due to low circulation and an extremely disadvantageous revenue sharing agreement for theChronicle.[10]
On October 31, 1969, sixty members of theGay Liberation Front, the Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF), and the Gay Guerilla Theatre group staged a protest outside the offices of theExaminer in response to a series of news articles disparaging people in San Francisco'sgay bars and clubs.[11][12][13][14] The peaceful protest against theExaminer turned tumultuous and was later called "Friday of the Purple Hand" and "Bloody Friday of the Purple Hand."[14][15][16][17][18][19]Examiner employees "dumped a barrel of printers' ink on the crowd from the roof of the newspaper building."[20][21] The protestors "used the ink to scrawl slogans on the building walls" and slap purple hand prints "throughout downtown [San Francisco]," resulting in "one of the most visible demonstrations of gay power," according to theBay Area Reporter.[14][16][19] According to Larry LittleJohn, then president ofSociety for Individual Rights, "At that point, the tactical squad arrived – not to get the employees who dumped the ink, but to arrest the demonstrators. Somebody could have been hurt if that ink had gotten into their eyes, but the police were knocking people to the ground."[14] The accounts ofpolice brutality included instances of women being thrown to the ground and protesters' teeth being knocked out.[14][22]
In itsstylebook and by tradition, theExaminer refers to San Francisco as "The City" (capitalized), both in headlines and in the text of stories. San Francisco slang has traditionally referred to the newspaper in abbreviated slang form as "the Ex" (and theChronicle as "the Chron").
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When theChronicle Publishing Company divested its interests, Hearst purchased theChronicle. To satisfyantitrust concerns, Hearst sold theExaminer to ExIn, LLC, a corporation owned by the politically connected Fang family, publishers of theSan Francisco Independent and theSan Mateo Independent.[23] 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 theExaminer name, its archives, 35 delivery trucks, and a subsidy of $66 million, to be paid over three years.[24] From their side, the Fangs paid Hearst US$100 for theExaminer. Reilly later acquired theExaminer in 2020.[2]
On February 24, 2003, theExaminer became afree daily newspaper, printed Sunday through Friday.[25]
On February 19, 2004, the Fang family sold theExaminer and its printing plant, together with the twoIndependent newspapers, toPhilip Anschutz ofDenver, Colorado.[23] His new company,Clarity Media Group, launchedThe Washington Examiner in 2005 and publishedThe Baltimore Examiner from 2006 to 2009. In 2006, Anschutz donated the archives of theExaminer to theUniversity of California, BerkeleyBancroft Library, the largest gift ever given to the library.[26]
Under Clarity's ownership, theExaminer pioneered a new business model[27] for the newspaper industry. Designed to be read quickly, theExaminer is presented in acompact size without story jumps. It focuses on local news, business, entertainment, and sports, with an emphasis on content relevant to its local readers. It is delivered free to select neighborhoods inSan Francisco andSan Mateo counties, and to single-copy outlets throughoutSan Francisco,San Mateo,Santa Clara, andAlameda counties.
By February 2008, the company had transformed the newspaper'sexaminer.com domain into a nationalhyperlocal brand, with local websites throughout the United States.[28]
Clarity Media sold theExaminer to San Francisco Newspaper Company LLC in 2011. The company's investors included then-President and Publisher Todd Vogt, Chief Financial Officer Pat Brown, andDavid Holmes Black.[citation needed] Inaccurate early media reports claimed that Black's business,Black Press, had bought the paper.[29] In 2014, Vogt sold his shares to Black Press.[citation needed]
Present-day owners of theExaminer also ownSF Weekly, analternative weekly, and previously owned the now-shutteredSan Francisco Bay Guardian.[30]
In December 2020, Clint Reilly, under his company, Clint Reilly Communications, acquired theSF Examiner for an undisclosed sum.[2][31] The acquisition included buying theSF Weekly "like a stocking stuffer," Reilly said.[32] He also ownsGentry Magazine and theNob Hill Gazette.
He then hired editor-in-chief Carly Schwartz in 2021.[33] Under her leadership, abroadsheet-style newspaper was reintroduced,[34] and she launched two newsletters with a nod to the rise in popularity of email marketing models such asSubstack.[35] Schwartz also put theSF Weekly on hiatus "for the foreseeable future," ending a tenure of more than 40 years.[36]
In the early 20th century, an edition of theExaminer circulated in the East Bay under theOakland Examiner masthead. Into the late 20th century, the paper circulated well beyond San Francisco. In 1982, for example, theExaminer's zoned weekly supplements within the paper were titled "City", "Peninsula", "Marin/Sonoma" and "East Bay".[citation needed] Additionally, during the late 20th century, an edition of theExaminer was made available inNevada, which, coming out in the morning rather than in the afternoon as the 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.[citation needed]
