San Francisco Chronicle

A Brief History

Believe it or not, the Chronicle was begun by two boys who weren’t even in their teens when they got the idea to “publish a bold, bright, fearless and truly independent newspaper, independent in all things, neutral in nothing.” The paper—a simple, four-page affair launched under the moniker The Daily Dramatic Chronicle—was started by Charles and Michael DeYoung on January 16, 1865 with a lot of gumption and a little help from a relative. Within one month, the afternoon paper’s circulation reached 2,000, and within three years, its popularity skyrocketed to a point where the brothers decided it was time to begin selling subscriptions, as well as to begin publishing a “real” newspaper.

In 1868, The Daily Dramatic Chronicle became The Morning Chronicle. With a little help from obscure literary types like Mark Twain, the paper quickly became the most widely read newspaper west of the Mississippi. In April of 1880, Michael DeYoung took over the Chronicle’s offices entirely after his brother Charles was assassinated by Mayor Isaac Smith Kalloch’s son, and in 1920, the paper moved its offices to its famed current location, Fifth and Mission Streets in downtown San Francisco. The newspaper won its first of many Pulitzer Prizes in 1934 for a story that reporter Royce Brier wrote on the lynching deaths of two alleged San Jose kidnappers. Two years later, the Chronicle hired a writer whose name would go on to become synonymous with both the paper and San Francisco—Herb Caen. In 1965, the Chronicle merged with its greatest competitor—the San Francisco Examiner—and formed an operations-managing agency together. Together, the two papers shared profits through a unique joint operating agreement.

Jumping Forward

In 1993, the Chronicle’s online version made its debut, where it began operating under the domain name SFGate.com. As of today, SFGate.com is the fourth-most visited daily newspaper site in all of America.

After being owned and operated by the DeYoung family for its first 135 years, the Hearst Corporation took over the reins of the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000. Since then, the paper has seen a number of dramatic changes take place to its look and content—a new section entitled Insight and Living launched, and significant improvements were made to the Real Estate section, the Sunday Chronicle magazine, and the highly popular Datebook section. While in the past, unfortunately, the paper had been the butt of jokes in such films as “All the President’s Men” and “Tales of the City” for its supposed poor quality, by 2003 it became recognized by the esteemed Columbia Journalism Review as a “serious journalistic player at last,” primarily due to the revamping of the previously mentioned sections.

What to Expect Inside

On a typical weekday in the San Francisco Chronicle, you will find—of course—of course the front page, which mainly covers national and international news, but also big Bay Area stories. The Bay Area section of the paper is devoted strictly to goings-on in the Bay Area, the Sports section covers all angles of just about every sport there is, and the Datebook offers film, television, and live music listings, not to mention arts and entertainment feature stories and comics. There are also Business and Editorial sections daily. On Wednesdays, the celebrated Food section gets published, and on Saturdays, the Home section appears. Sunday’s massive edition features all of the above sections, plus Insight, Wine, Real Estate, Books, Style, and Travel sections.

For a look at the Chronicle’s online version, visit SFGgate.com, or go to SFGate/Chronicle.

More Information on the San Francisco Chronicle

Wikipedia – The San Francisco Chronicle

Answers.com – The San Francisco Chronicle

Home Delivery of the San Francisco Chronicle

To have the Chronicle delivered to your doorstep, visit this link: San Francisco Chronicle Subscriber Services.