Los-Andzheles Herald Examiner: История газеты

American newspaper in Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Herald Examiner was a major Los Angeles daily newspaper, published in the afternoon from Monday to Friday and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the Hearst syndicate. It was formed when the afternoon Herald Express and the morning Los Angeles Examiner, both of which were published there since the turn of the 20th century, merged in 1962. For a few years after the merger, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner had the largest afternoon newspaper circulation in the US. It published its last edition on November 2, 1989.

William Randolph Hearst founded the Los Angeles Examiner in 1903, in order to assist his campaign for the presidential nomination on the Democratic ticket, complement his San Francisco Examiner, and provide a union friendly answer to the Los Angeles Times. At its peak in 1960, the Examiner had a circulation of 381,037. It attracted the top newspapermen and women of the day. The Examiner flourished in the 1940s under the leadership of the city editor James H. Richardson, who led his reporters to emphasize crime and Hollywood scandal coverage. The Los Angeles Herald Examiner was the result of a merger with the Los Angeles Herald Express in 1962. In turn, the Herald Express had been the result of a merger between the Los Angeles Evening Express and Evening Herald in 1931. The Herald Express was also Hearst owned and excelled in tabloid journalism under City Editor Agness Underwood, a veteran crime reporter for the Los Angeles Record before moving to the Herald Express first as a reporter and later its city editor. With the merger in 1962, the newspaper became an afternoon only newspaper. The Examiner, while founded as a pro labor newspaper, shifted to a hard right stance by the 1930s, much like the rest of the Hearst chain. It was pro law enforcement and was vehemently anti Japanese during World War II. Its editorials openly praised the mass deportation of Mexicans, including U. S. citizens, in the early 1930s, and was hostile to liberal movements and labor strikes during the Depression. Its coverage of the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles during World War II also was particularly harsh on the Mexican American community. Much of its conservative rhetoric was minimized when Richardson retired in 1957. Underwood remained on the staff following the merger in an upper management position, leaving the day to day operations to younger editors.

The paper enjoyed a journalistic and spiritual renaissance beginning in 1978, when Jim Bellows was hired as its editor. "On January 1, Jim Bellows came to Los Angeles as editor of the worst urban daily newspaper in America, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner," read a profile in Esquire magazine, in 1978. Bellows and his successor, Mary Ann Dolan, brought an infusion of new talent, youth and energy to the newsroom. The excitement of rejuvenating a newspaper in Los Angeles with a storied past attracted a stream of young journalists, many with Ivy League credentials. The paper's scrappy, no holds barred, often unconventional coverage repeatedly challenged the dominant Los Angeles Times on stories about City Hall, local politics, the Los Angeles Police Department, the arts and sports, and its coverage was recognized repeatedly for its excellence by the Los Angeles Press Club. The paper was also slightly eclectic: its entertainment section was hip, its sports section was blue collar and its news hole straddled the tabloid and kick ass journalism genres. However, as an after effect of the 10 year long strike, advertising and circulation continued to decline. The paper switched back to a morning publication in 1982, 20 years after the merger; this did little to improve sagging revenue and readership. Furthermore, having two editions led to higher production costs. The afternoon edition was dropped during 1989. In 1989, the Hearst Corporation attempted to sell the moribund newspaper, but found no suitable buyers (News Corporation intended to buy the paper and turn it into a tabloid, but backed out). This led to the company's shutting down the newspaper. On November 2, 1989, the paper printed its last edition, with a banner head saying "SO LONG, L. A.!" One factor behind the shutdown was increased pressure from the competing Los Angeles Times, whose circulation was, at the time of the Herald Examiner shutdown, about four times larger. once splendid 1913 Julia Morgan inspired Mission Revival building had gone to seed, the ground floor arched windows long since covered over as a result of vandalism . . Its beautiful lobby and graceful staircase to the second floor newsroom were virtually all that was left of the original interior; the rest looked like a cheap 1950s era retrofit.

The Los Angeles Herald Examiner Building is at the southwest corner of Broadway and 11th Street in southern Downtown Los Angeles. Hearst paid $1 million in 1913 for the parcel, which was part of railroad magnate Henry Huntington's land holdings. The building was designed in the Mission Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival styles, largely by San Francisco architect Julia Morgan, then associated with Los Angeles architects J. Martyn Haenke and William J. Dodd, whose contributions have not yet been determined by scholars. It was completed in 1914, and is a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument. It was also featured in television series as varied as Murder, She Wrote, Brooklyn Nine Nine, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The property hosted its last production in July 2015. Georgetown Co., a New York real estate developer, obtained control of the site in 2015. Plans for an $80 million

The Los Angeles Express was Los Angeles's oldest newspaper published under its original name until it merged with the Herald. It was established on March 27, 1871.

Established in 1873, the Los Angeles Herald or the Evening Herald represented the largely Democratic views of the city and focused primarily on issues local to Los Angeles and Southern California. The Los Angeles Daily Herald was first published on October 2, 1873, by Charles A. Storke. It was the first newspaper in Southern California to use the innovative steam press; the newspaper's offices at 125 South Broadway were popular with the public because large windows on the ground floor allowed passersby to see the presses in motion. In 1922, the Herald officially joined the Hearst News empire.

In 1931, Hearst merged the Los Angeles Daily Herald with the Los Angeles Evening Express to form the Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express, which was then the largest circulating evening newspaper west of the Mississippi.