Hearst Co. Acquires San Francisco Chronicle

Ending decades of jockeying and rivalry between this city’s two daily newspapers, the parent company of the San Francisco Examiner announced Friday that it is acquiring the San Francisco Chronicle and will put its own flagship paper up for sale.

The sales accord between the Hearst Corp. and the Chronicle Publishing Co. would end a federally approved joint operating agreement that had preserved one of the country’s most vibrant cities as a two-newspaper town for nearly 35 years.

In separate midday meetings with the staffs of the two papers, Hearst President and Chief Executive Frank A. Bennack Jr. said agreement had been reached for purchase of the Chronicle and “SF Gate,” a Web site for news and other information. “There will be no involuntary layoffs,” he assured the staff.

The sale price was not disclosed by the private companies. Officials said other assets of Chronicle Publishing, including San Francisco’s KRON television, remain for sale.

In a conference room overflowing with Examiner reporters and editors, Bennack said the corporation will make an effort to sell the newspaper over the next three to six weeks. The sale, he said, will cover the paper’s name, goodwill and staff but not printing presses, delivery trucks or advertising staff.

If the Examiner, a scrappy 112-year-old afternoon paper with a daily circulation of 114,776, is sold, any employees not offered jobs by the buyer will be employed by Hearst at the Chronicle, Bennack said.

If the Examiner is not sold, he said the staff will be merged with the staff at the Chronicle, a morning daily with a circulation of 482,268. The combined newspaper, he said, would publish only in the morning and probably would bear the names of both papers.

The merger would require approval from federal anti-trust officials, Bennack noted.

Although the newspapers equally shared profits under their joint operating agreement and produced a combined Sunday paper, they have competed editorially and for staff in a spirited rivalry.

Experts and even some Examiner staffers expressed skepticism that the newspaper will be purchased.

“I expect nobody will buy it,” said Ben Bagdikian, a media critic and former dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. “No one is going to buy a big-city afternoon paper that is losing money.”

While afternoon papers are fading toward extinction, he said, morning newspapers in good markets are making profits in excess of 20%.

Carl T. Hall, president of the Northern California Media Workers Guild/Typographic Union, said the 550 editorial employees take comfort in the no-layoff guarantee. But he said some beat reporters and other writers worry that their working conditions could be affected if the staffs are combined.

Mayor Willie Brown and a number of other civic leaders have maintained that the city would be best served by preserving all its daily papers.

The sale was greeted with a mixture of relief and anxiety in both newsrooms, which are separated by composing rooms and corridors.

Examiner employees were happy that their company was doing the buying but were worried that they could end up working for another company. “People work here because they believe in lively writing, gutsy reporting,” said reporter Marsha Ginsberg. “We’re unorthodox and take chances.”

Like others at both papers, she expressed hope that any merger would result in a stronger paper to better serve the community. “Maybe for the first time in decades,” she said, “people will take San Francisco journalism seriously.”