San Francisco Examiner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| San Francisco Examiner | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
| Format | tabloid Newspaper |
|
|
|
| Owner | Philip Anschutz |
| Founded | 1863/1865 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA, U.S. |
|
|
|
| Website: Examiner.com | |
The San Francisco Examiner is a daily newspaper in San Francisco, California, where it has been published continuously since the late 19th Century.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] 19th century
The beginning of the Examiner is a topic of some controversy. The date for its start is often given as 1865, but former Examiner columnist P.J. Corkery has written that its first issue was actually printed on October 20, 1863, under the name The Daily Democratic Press but that on June 12, 1865, the same newspaper "began to appear on the streets as The Examiner." The reason, he said, was the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 24, 1865.
When word of Lincoln’s assassination reached San Francisco, angry citizens stormed the offices of the newspaper that would become The Examiner, wrecked it and set fire to it. The reason? The Daily Democratic Press had been a pro-Confederacy newspaper, a pro-slavery newspaper. The citizens of San Francisco, outraged that southern sympathizers had murdered Lincoln, sought to kill the paper and the editors. Needless to say, the proprietors , , , decided an image change was in order. So when they pulled themselves together, they renamed the paper, The Examiner.[1]
The paper was bought by mining engineer and entrepreneur George Hearst in 1880 and seven years later he gave it to his son, William Randolph Hearst, who was then 23 years old. A story that Hearst had won the paper in a poker game is "pure Hearst mythology," Corkery wrote, but other sources continue to make that or a similar statement.[2][3]
Under Hearst, the paper's popularity increased greatly, with the help of such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and the San Francisco-born Jack London.[4] Sales were helped by the Examiner's version of yellow journalism, printing scandal and satire, as well as helping build support for the Spanish American war and the annexation of the Philippines.
[edit] 20th and 21st centuries
After the great earthquake and fire of 1906 destroyed much of San Francisco, the Examiner and its rivals — the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Call — brought out a joint edition. The Examiner offices were destroyed on April 18, 1906 [5], but when the city was rebuilt a new structure, the Hearst Building, arose in its place at Third and Markets Streets. It opened in 1909, and in 1937 the facade, entranceway and lobby underwent an extensive remodeling designed by architect Julia Morgan. [6]
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.
In 2000, Ted Fang and his mother, Florence Fang, obtained the Examiner name, its archives, 35 delivery trucks and a subsidy of $66 million (over three years) as part of the Hearst Corporation's acquisition of the Chronicle. The last day the Hearst Corporation published the Examiner was November 21, 2000.
On September 12, 2001, the front page of the Examiner featured a photo of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on fire as the result of the September 11, 2001, attacks, and the accompanying headline read: "BASTARDS! A Changed America."
On February 24, 2003, the Examiner switched from a broadsheet to a tabloid and became a free daily newspaper. Three days later, the Fangs laid off 40 staffers in the paper's circulation and news departments. The switch to a free tabloid was made easier by the fact that a profitable free tabloid, the Palo Alto Daily News, was operating just 20 miles south of San Francisco, providing a model the Examiner could copy.
On February 19, 2004, Denver, Colorado-based billionaire Philip Anschutz purchased the Examiner and its printing plant for an estimated $20 million. His new company, Clarity Media Group, launched the Washington Examiner in 2005 and Baltimore Examiner in April 2006. A redesign of the three newspapers was completed in 2006 by Robb Montgomery.
[edit] Management
The Examiner has had three editors since August 2004. Vivienne Sosnowski was executive editor from that month until December 2005, when she was transferred to the Washington Examiner. She came from Canada, as did her replacement, Calgary Herald editor, Malcolm Kirk. Kirk was executive editor from December 2005 until he returned to Calgary in July 2006 to become publisher of the Calgary Herald. On July 20, 2006, the Examiner announced it would promote managing editor James Pimentel to the executive editor post.
[edit] References
- ^ How Old Is The Examiner? [1]
- ^ "A Timeline of San Francisco History" [2]
- ^ Honolulu Star-Bulletin, "Judge clears way for Hearst to buy San Francisco Chronicle." July 27, 2000 [3]
- ^ William Randolph Hearst, 1863-1951[4]
