San Francisco Chronicle
The
San Francisco Chronicle, self-described "Voice of the West," is
Northern California's largest
newspaper. Serving primarily the
San Francisco Bay Area, but distributed throughout Northern California, including the
Sacramento area and
North Coast, it has a daily circulation of over 500,000. The paper was owned by the de Young family until
July 27,
2000, when it was sold to
Hearst Communications, Inc., who owned the rival
San Francisco Examiner. Following the sale, the Hearst Corporation sold the
Examiner to the Fang family, publisher of the
San Francisco Independent and
Asian Week. Under Fang's management, the
Examiner became a free
tabloid, leaving the
Chronicle as the only daily
broadsheet newspaper in San Francisco, though not in the Bay Area.
The
Chronicle was founded in
1865 by brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. As of 2005 the publisher of the
Chronicle is Frank J. Vega, the executive vice president and editor is Phil Bronstein, the vice president and managing
editor is Robert Rosenthal and the editorial page editor is John Diaz.
Between
World War II and 1965, the newspaper grew from fourth place in circulation to become the city's largest, thanks mostly to colorful columnists led by
Herb Caen.
The online version of the newspaper,
SFGate, is led by vice president Peter Negulescu and news director Vlae Kershner. As well as publishing the
San Francisco Chronicle online, SFGate adds other features not available in the
print version, such as blogs and podcasts.
The paper has received the
Pulitzer Prize on a number of occasions. Despite an illustrious and long history, the paper's news reportage is not as extensive as in the past. The current day
Chronicle has followed the trend of other American newspapers, devoting increasing attention to local and regional news and cultural and entertainment criticism to the detriment of the paper's traditionally strong national and international reportage, though the paper does maintain a Washington DC bureau. This increased focus on local news is a response to the competition from other Bay Area newspapers including the resurrected
San Francisco Examiner, the
Oakland Tribune, the
Contra Costa Times and the
San Jose Mercury News. The
Chronicle distributes two versions of its local news section -- one for San Francisco, and one for the Bay Area.
One area of note, however, is the architecture column by John King; the
Chronicle is still one of the few American papers to present a regular column on architectural issues. The paper also has regular weekly sections devoted to 'Food', 'Home & Garden', and 'Wine'. The Sunday editions contain a
San Francisco Chronicle Magazine that regularly focuses on the previously mentioned topics. In early 2006 a new section, '
96 Hours', was added to the Thursday edition of the paper, covering entertainment from that day through Sunday.
Circulation has fallen precipitously since the heyday of the dot-com boom. Most recently, the Chronicle's circulation dropped by 15.6% between 2005 and 2006 to 398,246. [
1] In response, the newspaper has cut back on local news coverage and takes many national and international stories from the
Associated Press instead of relying on Chronicle correspondents.
While the San Francisco Chronicle is liberal by national standards, several Bay Area papers, like the
San Francisco Bay Guardian regularly criticize its coverage as right-leaning (from a progressive viewpoint). According to these critics, as the Chronicle has tried to extend its readership to more conservative areas such as the East Bay and South Bay, it has moved away from progressive coverage of local or national politics, has consistently endorsed conservative candidates running for local office, and has editorialized against progressive propositions coming up for a vote in San Francisco. [
2] In addition, the Chronicle fired a business reporter who was participating on his own time in an anti-war protest. [
3]
Meanwhile, conservatives have criticzed the Chronicle for being too liberal. Jim Sparkman, a retired chemical engineer, operates ChronWatch [
4], a web site critical of the San Francisco Chronicle. He believes that the recent circulation drop is a result of people disagreeing with the paper's slant. [
5] ChronWatch claims that the Chronicle deliberately plays down or chooses not to cover aspects of major stories unfavorable to the left. [
6] Regarding an anti-war protest story, a photographer complained that the
Chronicle failed to capture the fact that the teenaged subject of one photograph was part of a group being led by organizers affiliated with the
Communist Party. [
7] The Chronicle agreed that the choice of picture was poor but denied any bias. [
8]
*
SFGate: Online version of the newspaper
