San Francisco Examiner Cuts Staff
The San Francisco Examiner, a once-fabled newspaper that has been struggling to survive in the shadow of the dominant Chronicle, fired most of its editorial staffers Friday, but planned to continue publishing.
The 25-cent tabloid will probably be offered for free, dismissed employees say they were told. The Examiner, which had about 40 employees, now will be assisted by reporters from two weekly publications that also are owned by Publisher Florence Fang. She could not be reached for comment.
The 30 or so reporters who were dismissed were called into a “marketing meeting,” a fired employee said. Florence Fang’s son, James, thanked the reporters for their hard work in recent months and then turned the meeting over to Executive Editor Zoran Basich.
“He basically just told us, ‘You’re all gone. You’ve got 15 minutes to clean out your desks,’ ” said crime reporter Richard Byrne Reilly.
He said newspaper officials cut phone lines and computer connections as the meeting started. Reporters were then escorted out of the building. Many lost valuable files and numbers. “I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of important files wiped out, hundreds of e-mails -- all gone,” Reilly said.
Those who were spared were euphoric. “Thank God,” said John Kelly Dineen, a general assignment reporter. “I have a kid on the way.” Frank Gallagher, a political editor and columnist who also was kept on, said, “Everybody who signed on to this organization knew that its future was a question mark.”
The Examiner, traditionally a broadsheet, was relaunched as a tabloid in November. “A true San Francisco paper bristles with energy,” Basich told readers, promising that “local news and commentary will dominate the front section.”
Friday’s 72-page paper included numerous staff-written local stories as well as several columns. But the paper had been downsized in recent months, employees said. “It was the incredible shrinking paper,” Reilly said.
For much of its history, the Examiner has been intertwined with the Hearst family. George Hearst received the paper in 1880 as payment for a gambling debt. Seven years later, his son Will took it over, the first in a string of properties that made him the most powerful media magnate of the era.
Those were the Examiner’s glory days, when its slogan of “Monarch of the Dailies” seemed plausible. Will Hearst III tried to reinvigorate the paper in the 1980s, hiring luminaries such as gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson as guest columnists. But most media critics assumed that the only reason the paper hadn’t died like so many others was a joint operating agreement, which split profits with the flush Chronicle.
In November 2000, the Hearst Corp. bought the Chronicle from its longtime owners. Unable to find a buyer for the Examiner and unable to close it without triggering federal antitrust concerns, Hearst essentially gave the paper to the Fang family, along with a $66-million subsidy. The Fangs also publish the weekly Independent and Asian Week.
Reporters said that subsidy was due to run out at the end of the summer. “I thought we would be around at least that long,” Reilly said.
On Friday, news vans gathered as reporters carried boxes and potted plants to their cars. Most reporters were circumspect about the news.
Reilly said a colleague went into the newspaper lobby and saw the troop of security guards gathered to escort reporters from the premises. The reporter returned to the newsroom and flatly told his colleagues: “I think it’s done.”
Gallagher, the political editor, said any obituaries for the Examiner were premature. “There will be an Examiner on Monday just like there’s been one every Monday for the last 150 years,” he said. “This is a reorganization. It’s certainly not a death knell.”
