San Francisco Examiner facts for kids
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Front page for February 2, 1922
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| Type | Newspaper |
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| Format | Broadsheet |
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| Founded |
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| Headquarters | 465 California St. Suite 1600 San Francisco, CA 94104 |
| ISSN | 2574-593X |
The San Francisco Examiner is a newspaper that is given out in and around San Francisco, California. It has been published since 1863.
Once, a former owner named William Randolph Hearst called it the "Monarch of the Dailies." This meant it was the most important newspaper in his company, the Hearst Corporation. In the early 2000s, the Examiner started being given out for free. Today, it is owned by Clint Reilly Communications, which bought the newspaper in late 2020. They also bought another paper called SF Weekly at the same time.
Contents
History of the San Francisco Examiner
How the Newspaper Started
The Examiner began in 1863 as the Democratic Press. This paper supported certain political views during the American Civil War. However, after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, a group of people destroyed the paper's offices. Starting on June 12, 1865, the newspaper was renamed The Daily Examiner.
Hearst Family Takes Over
In 1880, a mining engineer and businessman named George Hearst bought the Examiner. Seven years later, after he became a U.S. Senator, he gave the newspaper to his 23-year-old son, William Randolph Hearst. People said the elder Hearst got the struggling paper as part of a poker game payment.
William Randolph Hearst hired S.S. Chamberlain as the managing editor and Arthur McEwen as the editor. He changed the Examiner from an evening paper to a morning paper. Under his leadership, the newspaper became much more popular. Famous writers like Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and Jack London wrote for it. The paper also became successful by using a style called yellow journalism. This meant it used many foreign reporters and had exciting stories about scandals. It also featured satire and showed strong support for the Spanish–American War. William Randolph Hearst created the newspaper's main title, which included the "Hearst Eagle" and the slogan Monarch of the Dailies by 1889.
The 20th Century for the Examiner
After the big earthquake and fire in 1906 destroyed much of San Francisco, the Examiner and its rivals, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Call, printed a combined newspaper. The Examiner offices were destroyed on April 18, 1906. But when the city was rebuilt, a new building called the Hearst Building was built in its place. It opened in 1909. In 1937, the front of the building, entrance, and lobby were redesigned by architect Julia Morgan.
In the middle of the 20th century, the Examiner was one of several daily newspapers competing for readers in San Francisco and the Bay Area. Other papers like the San Francisco News, the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, and the Chronicle all had many readers. Eventually, the Examiner was left with only one main competitor: the Chronicle. There was strong competition between these two papers in the 1950s and 1960s. The Examiner had popular writers like sportswriter Prescott Sullivan and Herb Caen, who wrote for the Chronicle before joining the Examiner for eight years. Kenneth Rexroth, a well-known writer and poet, also wrote weekly stories about the city from 1960 to 1967. In the end, the competition led to the two papers combining some of their resources.
For 35 years, starting in 1965, the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner worked together under a special agreement. The Chronicle printed a morning paper, and the Examiner printed an afternoon paper. The Examiner also published the news sections and glossy magazine for the Sunday paper, while the Chronicle provided the other special features. About 100,000 copies were sold on weekdays and 500,000 on Sundays. By 1995, people were already talking about the Examiner possibly closing because it had fewer readers and a bad money-sharing deal with the Chronicle.
On October 31, 1969, a group of people protested outside the Examiner offices. They were upset about news articles that spoke badly about people in San Francisco's gay bars and clubs. This peaceful protest turned chaotic and was later called "Friday of the Purple Hand." Examiner employees threw a barrel of printer's ink on the crowd from the roof. The protesters then used the ink to write slogans on the building walls and make purple hand prints around downtown San Francisco. This became a very visible demonstration of gay power. According to one leader, the police arrived and arrested the protesters instead of the employees who threw the ink. There were reports of clashes, and some protesters were hurt.
In its writing rules, the Examiner traditionally calls San Francisco "The City" (with a capital C) in headlines and stories. People in San Francisco often use slang to call the newspaper "the Ex."
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San Francisco Examiner front page, Friday, February 27, 1942
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The Examiner, 2007
The 21st Century for the Examiner
The Fang Family Buys the Paper
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When the Chronicle Publishing Company sold its businesses, the Hearst Corporation bought the Chronicle. To avoid problems with competition rules, Hearst sold the Examiner to a company called ExIn, LLC. This company was owned by the Fang family, who also published the San Francisco Independent. A political consultant named Clint Reilly sued Hearst, saying the deal wasn't fair and didn't ensure two competing newspapers. However, on July 27, 2000, a federal judge approved the Fang family taking over the Examiner name, its old records, 35 delivery trucks, and a payment of $66 million over three years. The Fang family paid Hearst $100 for the Examiner. Clint Reilly later bought the Examiner himself in 2020.
On February 24, 2003, the Examiner became a free daily newspaper, printed from Sunday through Friday.
Anschutz Buys the Examiner
On February 19, 2004, the Fang family sold the Examiner and its printing factory, along with the two Independent newspapers, to Philip Anschutz from Denver, Colorado. His new company, Clarity Media Group, started The Washington Examiner in 2005 and published The Baltimore Examiner from 2006 to 2009. In 2006, Anschutz gave the Examiner's old records to the University of California, Berkeley Bancroft Library. This was the largest gift the library had ever received.
Under Clarity's ownership, the Examiner tried a new way of doing business for newspapers. It was designed to be read quickly and was printed in a smaller size without stories jumping to other pages. It focused on local news, business, entertainment, and sports, with content important to its local readers. It was delivered for free to certain neighborhoods in San Francisco and San Mateo counties. It was also available for free at single-copy locations throughout San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Alameda counties.
By February 2008, the company had turned the newspaper's examiner.com website into a national brand with local websites across the United States.
Independent Owners Take Over
Clarity Media sold the Examiner to San Francisco Newspaper Company LLC in 2011. The investors in this company included Todd Vogt, Pat Brown, and David Holmes Black. Early news reports incorrectly said that Black's company, Black Press, bought the paper. In 2014, Vogt sold his shares to Black Press.
The current owners of the Examiner also own SF Weekly, which is an alternative weekly newspaper. They used to own the San Francisco Bay Guardian, which has now closed.
Clint Reilly Buys the Examiner Again
In December 2020, Clint Reilly, through his company Clint Reilly Communications, bought the SF Examiner for an amount that was not made public. Reilly said that buying the SF Weekly was like a "stocking stuffer" included in the deal. He also owns Gentry Magazine and the Nob Hill Gazette.
He then hired Carly Schwartz as editor-in-chief in 2021. Under her leadership, a broadsheet-style newspaper was brought back. She also started two newsletters, following the growing popularity of email marketing like Substack. Schwartz also put the SF Weekly on hold "for the foreseeable future," ending its more than 40-year run.
In July 2022, Schwartz announced on Facebook that she had left the role. She said that while it was a "dream job" on paper, it didn't give her enough time to travel. She then planned to write her memoir and go to Burning Man.
People Who Worked at the Examiner
Current Staff
- Allen Matthews was hired as director of editorial operations in 2021.
Former Staff
- Phil Bronstein, editor (left Examiner in 2012)
- Herb Caen, columnist (1950–1958)
- Oscar Chopin, cartoonist
- C. H. Garrigues, jazz columnist (retired 1967)
- Howard Lachtman, literary critic (1977–1986)
- Edward S. Montgomery, journalist
- Edgar Orloff, assistant managing editor (retired 1982)
- David Talbot, founder of the early online magazine Salon
- Ernest Thayer, humor columnist (1886–1888)
- Stuart Schuffman, a guest columnist. In 2021, he announced that after 6 and a half years, he would move his column to SF Weekly.
- Al Saracevic was hired as assistant managing editor in 2021. Saracevic died suddenly in August 2022 while working for the SF Examiner.
- Frank Herbert
Different Editions of the Newspaper
In the early 1900s, an edition of the Examiner was circulated in the East Bay area under the name Oakland Examiner. Later in the 20th century, the paper was available far beyond San Francisco. For example, in 1982, the Examiner had weekly sections for different areas. These were called "City," "Peninsula," "Marin/Sonoma," and "East Bay." Also, during the late 20th century, an edition of the Examiner was sold in Nevada. This Nevada edition came out in the morning, unlike the San Francisco edition which came out in the afternoon. It would feature news from the San Francisco edition from the day before. However, things like comic strips and feature columns would be dated for the current day.
See also
In Spanish: San Francisco Examiner para niños
- San Francisco Chronicle
- San Francisco newspaper strike of 1994
