The San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

The San Francisco Examiner is a U.S. daily newspaper. It has been published continuously in San Francisco, California, since the late 19th century. The paper was bought by George Hearst in 1880 and seven years later he gave it to his son, William Randolph Hearst, who was then 23 years old. Under Hearst, the paper's popularity increased greatly, with the help of such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and Jack London. Sales were helped by the Examiner's version of yellow journalism, printing scandal and satire.

The San Francisco Chronicle is Northern California's largest newspaper, serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California. Founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle, the Chronicle grew in circulation to become the city's largest, overtaking the rival San Francisco Examiner.

Strident competition prevailed between the two papers in the 1950s and 1960s; the Examiner boasted, among other writers, such columnists as 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 the summer of 1965 when a merger of sorts created a Joint Operating Agreement under which the Chronicle became the city's sole morning daily while the Examiner changed to afternoon publication (which ultimately led to a declining readership). The two newspapers' editorial staffs combined to produce a joint Sunday edition, with the Examiner publishing the news sections and the Sunday magazine and the Chronicle responsible for features. This arrangement stayed in place until July 2000 when the Hearst Corporation, which already owned the Examiner, took full control of the Chronicle and transferred the Examiner. Under the new owners, the Examiner became a free tabloid, leaving the Chronicle as the only daily broadsheet newspaper in San Francisco.

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