Examiner ends 113 years as a Hearst-owned newspaper

Wednesday, November 22nd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ After a sentimental day producing a final paper alongside colleagues that often seemed like family, about 220 former employees of the San Francisco Examiner prepared Wednesday to face a strange new era working next to their archrivals at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Even as the top editors talked about an espirit de corps as the newsrooms of the Examiner and Chronicle come together, the troops weren't quite ready to engage in a group hug.

``It has been bred into us that (the Chronicle) is the enemy,'' said police reporter Malcolm Glover, who worked at the Examiner for 57 years.

The Chronicle's new real estate editor Richard Paoli, who worked at the Examiner for the past 19 years, is looking forward to his new job, but admitted it's going to be unsettling at first.

``Its kind of like moving in with your in-laws,'' he said.

The Examiner's former newsroom employees find themselves in this awkward situation in the fallout from Hearst Corp.'s $660 million purchase of the Chronicle. The deal compelled Hearst to relinquish control of the San Francisco paper that launched its publishing empire in 1887.

To win government approval of the Chronicle acquisition, Hearst agreed to turn the Examiner name and other assets to San Francisco publisher Ted Fang and pay the new owner a $66 million subsidy during the next three years.

Hearst guaranteed all of the Examiner's employees jobs at the Chronicle, but didn't assure anyone that they would be covering the same topics _ or working the same times _ that they did before the two newsrooms merged.

The arrangement has triggered a gamut of emotion, ranging from giddy anticipation to fitful dread among Examiner workers who frequently ridiculed the Chronicle as lazy reporters beholden to special interests. The Chronicle staff meanwhile looked down upon the Examiner as a crude paper with a rapidly shrinking audience of readers.

``This isn't going to be entirely pleasant for everyone,'' said Rob Morse, who frequently roasted the Chronicle in his 15 years as an Examiner columnist. ``I am not going to sweat my new position at the Chronicle. If they end up turning me into a police reporter, well I have had a good run as a columnist.''

Hearst passed out $2,000 bonuses to each of the newsroom employees who collected their final Examiner paychecks Tuesday, but the money wasn't enough to ease the heartache of some.

Judy Canter, the Examiner's head librarian, said she is still grieving over the loss of the paper's archives, which include 11 million stories, 7 million photos and curt one-sentence orders issued by William Randolph Hearst.

As part of the Examiner's sale, Hearst agreed to turn over the paper's archives to Fang.

``This is heavy stuff. I shed a lot of tears about losing the library. I just sobbed,'' said Canter, who worked at the Examiner for 22 years.

Others were more sanguine about the changing of the guard.

``It's definitely a sad day, but you can't get too nostalgic about it. It's just a job,'' said Examiner technology writer Alan Saracevic.

Under Hearst, the Examiner employed some of literature's best-known names, including Ambrose Bierce, Jack London, Mark Twain and, more recently, Hunter Thompson. The paper also introduced ``Casey At The Bat'' to the country by publishing Ernest Thayer's famous poem in 1888.

The paper thrived for years until entering into a profit-sharing agreement with the Chronicle in 1965. The arrangement made money for Hearst, but spelled the beginning of the end for the Examiner as a widely read paper.

When the Chronicle and Examiner joined their business operations while keeping separate newsrooms, they were nearly the same size. The Chronicle's 1965 circulation totaled 362,000 compared with 303,000 at the Examiner.

The Examiner's circulation had dwindled to about 96,000 when the end came, versus the Chronicle's weekday circulation of 457,000.