Media in the San Francisco Bay Area facts for kids
Media in the San Francisco Bay Area refers to media produced and covered within the San Francisco Bay Area, historically focused on San Francisco, but with two other major media centers, Oakland and San Jose. The Federal Communications Commission, Nielsen Media Research, and other similar media organizations treat the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose area one entire media market. The region hosts to one of the oldest radio stations in the United States still in existence, KCBS (AM) (740 kHz), founded by engineer Charles Herrold in 1909. As the home of Silicon Valley, the Bay Area is also a technologically advanced and innovative region, with many companies involved with Internet media or influential websites.
The first newspaper published by Americans in California was The Californian, printed in Monterey in 1846 announcing the Mexican–American War, written half in English and half Spanish. The press was moved to San Francisco and printing started up again on May 22, 1847 in competition with the weekly California Star, beginning that January. The first newspaper published solely in English in San Francisco was The Star published by Mormon pioneer Sam Brannan before San Francisco was renamed from Yerba Buena in 1847. Both efforts suspended publication in the face of the California Gold Rush. By August, The Californian had resumed publication, but by November 1848, both papers were bought and merged, then renamed the Alta California.
The press that once printed The Californian was moved to the Sacramento area to be used on the Placer Times. The press was again moved and began publishing the Motherlode's first paper, the Sonora Herald, then taken to Columbia to print the Columbia Star. Within a few years of the discovery of gold, mother lode towns all had multiple competing journals. Before 1860, California had 57 newspapers and periodicals serving an average readership of 290,000.
James King of William began publishing the Daily Evening Bulletin in San Francisco in October, 1855 and built it into the highest circulation paper in the city. He criticized a city supervisor named James P. Casey, who, on the afternoon of the story about him, ran in the paper, shot and mortally wounded King. Casey was lynched by the early vigilante committee. The Morning Call was established and began publishing in December 1856, and later merged with the Bulletin to become the long-running Call-Bulletin. The San Francisco Chronicle debuted in June, 1865 as the Dramatic Chronicle, founded by Charles and M.H. de Young aged 19 and 17.
In 1887, young William Randolph Hearst took over his father's Daily Examiner, which became the flagship of his national chain.
Fremont Older became editor of the San Francisco Bulletin in 1895 and took up the struggle against the powerful Southern Pacific Railroad and along with fellow Californian Lincoln Steffens, became a well-known muckraker and the first objective observer to accuse District Attorney Charles Fickert of the framing of labor radical Thomas Mooney.
The oldest African-American newspaper, still active in the 1930s, was the California Eagle. It appeared first in Los Angeles in 1879. The first French journals, the Californien and the Gazette Republicane both began in 1850, and were followed by the Courrier du Pacifique in 1852. Both the first German and first Italian papers, the California Demokrat (1852) and the Voce del Popolo (1859) were founded in San Francisco and had long runs. Chinese in California have published many newspapers, the first being the Gold Hills News in 1854.
Noted journalists, writers, cartoonists and publishers have passed through San Francisco's media world, including:
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By the early decades of the 20th century, San Francisco supported four major dailies and numerous influential weeklies. The dailies were the San Francisco Call (later Call-Bulletin), the San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Scripps-Howard-owned Daily News. The weeklies included the Wasp, the ARGONAUT, the Labor Clarion, the Coast Seamen's Journal, Emanu-el, Liberator and the News Letter.
Today, several newspapers, covering community, regional, national, and international news, and community-specific papers, catering to niche markets and individual neighborhoods, are in circulation in the San Francisco Bay Area. The major English-language newspapers include the daily San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, San Jose Mercury News, and Oakland Tribune. The weekly alternative papers are the Metro Silicon Valley, East Bay Express, San Francisco Bay Guardian, and SF Weekly. Singtao Daily, World Journal, and Kangzhongguo are among the Asian newspapers that serve the Bay Area.
Newspapers
- The Argus (Fremont) - daily broadsheet
- Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek) - daily broadsheet
- The Daily News (Palo Alto) - daily tabloid
- Daily Review (Hayward) - daily broadsheet
- East Bay Express (Oakland) - weekly alternative
- Marin Independent Journal (Novato) - daily broadsheet
- Metro Silicon Valley (San Jose) - weekly alternative
- Oakland Tribune (Oakland) - daily broadsheet
- The Recorder (San Francisco) - daily legal newspaper
- San Francisco Business Times (San Francisco) - weekly business
- San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco) - daily broadsheet
- San Francisco Daily Journal (San Francisco) - daily legal newspaper
- The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco) - daily tabloid
- San Jose Mercury News (San Jose) - daily broadsheet
- San Mateo County Times (San Mateo) - daily broadsheet
- SF Weekly (San Francisco) - weekly alternative
- Several other community-based papers, published on a daily or weekly basis
- Former newspapers
- Alameda Times-Star
- Palo Alto Times, a daily newspaper serving Palo Alto and neighboring cities beginning in 1894 In 1979 it merged with the Redwood Tribune to become the Peninsula Times Tribune, which itself ceased publication March 12, 1993; 39 file cabinets and 69 boxes of clippings were professionally archived at the behest of the Palo Alto City Council in 1994 and distributed to local historical societies.
- San Francisco Bay Guardian - weekly alternative
- Ethnic newspapers
Aside from the major English broadsheets, the Bay Area also publishes newspapers catering to the large ethnic communities in the region, including:
- The Epoch Times (San Francisco) - Chinese daily broadsheet
- International Daily News (San Francisco) - Chinese daily broadsheet
- Kanzhongguo Times (Milpitas) - Chinese
- The Oakland Post (Oakland) - African American
- San Francisco Bay View (San Francisco) - African American
- Sing Tao Daily (Brisbane) - Chinese daily broadsheet
- Vision Hispana (Alameda) - Hispanic
- World Journal (San Francisco) - Chinese daily broadsheet
- Several other Asian and Hispanic newspapers
Several college newspapers also exist as well in the Bay Area, including:
- The Campanil (Mills College)
- The Daily Californian (UC Berkeley)
- Golden Gate XPress (San Francisco State University)
- Pioneer (CSU Hayward)
- San Francisco Foghorn (University of San Francisco)
- Spartan Daily (San Jose State University)
- Synapse (UC San Francisco)
Magazines
- 7x7
- Afar
- Bay Nature
- The Believer
- The Bold Italic
- Dwell
- Hyphen
- McSweeney's magazine and publishing house
- Macworld
- Mother Jones
- Salon
- San Francisco magazine
- SOMA
- Sunset
- Wired
- FourTwoNine
Online
Online publications
Besides websites that exist in addition to print publications, many publications that only exist online have come into existence in recent years. They include:
- Asian Week
- Bernalwood
- Beyond Chron
- The Bold Italic
- Burrito Justice
- Curbed SF
- Grubstreet SF
- Haighteration
- Hoodline
- Mission Local
- Mission Mission
- My Castro
- The San Francisco Appeal
- SanFranPreps.com
- SF Citizen
- SF Public Press
- SFBay.ca
- SFist
- Streetsblog SF
- The Tender
- UpOut SF
International news digital video channel AJ+, part of Al Jazeera Media Network, is also based in the city.
Internet media
As the home of Silicon Valley, a number of high technology companies involved with Internet media are either headquartered or have a significant presence in the Bay Area. These include the following:
Images for kids
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Sutro Tower, the landmark TV and radio antenna tower in San Francisco where some of the major Bay Area stations transmit from
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Newspaper vending machines in downtown San Jose
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Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, who took over the now-San Francisco Examiner in 1887 and later made it the flagship of his national chain
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The Tribune Tower in Oakland, the headquarters of the Oakland Tribune from 1924 to 2007
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