Founding The
Examiner was founded in 1863 as the
Democratic Press, a pro-
Confederacy, pro-
slavery, pro-
Democratic 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.
Hearst acquisition 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." William Randolph Hearst hired
S.S. (Sam) Chamberlain, who had started the first American newspaper in Paris, as managing editor It also found success through its version of
yellow journalism, with ample use of foreign correspondents and splashy coverage of scandals such as two entire pages of cables from Vienna about the
Mayerling Incident; 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 architect
Julia Morgan. 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. On October 31, 1969, sixty members of the
Gay Liberation Front, the Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF), and the Gay Guerilla Theatre group staged a protest outside the offices of the
Examiner in response to a series of news articles disparaging people in San Francisco's
gay bars and clubs. The peaceful protest against the
Examiner turned tumultuous and was later called "Friday of the Purple Hand" and "Bloody Friday of the Purple Hand."
Examiner employees "dumped a barrel of printers' ink on the crowd from the roof of the newspaper building." 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 the
Bay Area Reporter. In its
stylebook and by tradition, the
Examiner 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 the
Chronicle as "the Chron"). File:1942.02.26 San-Francisco-Examiner.jpg|
San Francisco Examiner front page, Friday, February 27, 1942 File:San Francisco Examiner.jpg|
The Examiner, 2007
21st century Fang acquisition When the
Chronicle Publishing Company divested its interests, Hearst purchased the
Chronicle. To satisfy
antitrust concerns, 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. 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 $66million, to be paid over three years. From their side, the Fangs paid Hearst US$100 for the
Examiner. Reilly later acquired the
Examiner in 2020.
Anschutz acquisition On February 19, 2004, the Fang family sold the
Examiner and its printing plant, together with the two
Independent newspapers, to
Philip Anschutz of
Denver, Colorado. Under Clarity's ownership, the
Examiner pioneered a new business model for the newspaper industry. Designed to be read quickly, the
Examiner is presented in a
compact 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 in
San Francisco and
San Mateo counties, and to single-copy outlets throughout
San Francisco,
San Mateo,
Santa Clara, and
Alameda counties. 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.
Independent ownership 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. Inaccurate early media reports claimed that Black's business,
Black Press, had bought the paper. In 2014, Vogt sold his shares to Black Press. Present-day owners of the
Examiner also own
SF Weekly, an
alternative weekly, and previously owned the now-shuttered
San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Clint Reilly acquisition In December 2020, Clint Reilly, under his company, Clint Reilly Communications, acquired the
SF Examiner for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition included buying the
SF Weekly "like a stocking stuffer," Reilly said. He also owns
Gentry Magazine and the
Nob Hill Gazette. He then hired editor-in-chief Carly Schwartz in 2021. Under her leadership, a
broadsheet-style newspaper was reintroduced, and she launched two newsletters with a nod to the rise in popularity of email marketing models such as
Substack. Schwartz also put the
SF Weekly on hiatus "for the foreseeable future," ending a tenure of more than 40 years. ==Staff==