Power of the press
by Staff ReportLed by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, newspapers were largely responsible for creating the Spanish American War through the birth of yellow journalism. Of course...
View ArticleThe country’s first war on drugs: SF vs. opium
by Chris Roberts San Francisco has always been a party town. A steady stream of wealth — whether from gold fields or Silicon Valley tech firms — has funded a freewheeling haven for imbibers. The City...
View ArticleWho's that Jack?
by Staff Report World, meet Jack, er, Loudon. The venerable author of such classics as “Call of the Wild” and “Martin Eden” fell victim to every journalist’s worst nightmare: misspelling a name. And...
View ArticleCity left in ruins
by Staff Report Perhaps no single event has been more important to the San Francisco we know today than the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906. The massive temblor struck at 5:12 a.m. April 18. Despite...
View ArticleArtistic free spirits have always flocked to SF
by Leslie Katz When did San Francisco become an arts mecca? If you ask Bill Issel, San Francisco State University's history professor emeritus, it always has been. Issel said "the three P's"— pioneer...
View ArticlePreparedness Day Bombing tore through cultural fabric of SF
by Jonah Owen Lamb The blast tore through the ranks of the parade, its metal-packed heart shattering windows and ripping through bodies in a wide arch of mayhem that littered lower Market Street. It...
View ArticleAn ‘all-night’ job: Editing Hunter Thompson’s Examiner column
by Laura Dudnick On the evening of Sunday, May 3, 1987, David McCumber, an editor at The San Francisco Examiner, was on the phone with one of the paper's weekly columnists: Hunter S. Thompson....
View ArticleEx-Examiners: Former reporter-editor recalls Jonestown, 1980s newsroom
by Laura Dudnick Before readers contacted news reporters via e-mail, online comments and Twitter, there was snail mail. And in the late 1970s, Tim Reiterman, a former reporter and editor for The San...
View ArticleDispelling myth of Twain as Examiner writer
by Jessica Kwong In the same manner that there is no evidence Mark Twain ever said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco," it's a misconception that he was a reporter for The...
View ArticleLegacy business: Boudin sourdough tastes the same today as it did in 1849
by Jessica Kwong Boudin Bakery started in 1849 when Isidore Boudin, the son of master bakers from France, got his hands on a wild yeast starter from Gold Rush miners for whom bread and pancakes were a...
View ArticleLegacy business: Coffee-crazed SF is the birthplace of Folgers
by Michael Barba For today's San Franciscan, the best part of waking up probably does not mean Folgers in your cup. Instead, it could be a single-origin pour-over from Ritual Coffee Roasters, Four...
View ArticleMeet Venise Wagner, reporter covering black community in SF in 1990s
by Michael Barba As a staff writer at The San Francisco Examiner 20 years ago, Venise Wagner was one of the only reporters assigned to cover the black community. That's because the newspaper was the...
View ArticleResidents catch break with new apartments
by Jessica Kwong Andrea Mayfield, her husband and daughter for the past two and a half months have been living in a two bedroom apartment at Broadway and Sansome streets with a living room twice the...
View ArticleMan smoking cigarette knocked out with wooden cane, robbed
by Michael BarbaA 38-year-old man was smoking a cigarette in South of Market early Wednesday morning when someone struck him in the face with a wooden cane, police said. The man was knocked...
View ArticlePolice: Man feared for his life during armed robbery near Bernal Heights
by Michael BarbaA 51-year-old man feared for his life when someone pointed a handgun at him near Bernal Heights midday Wednesday, robbing him of a tablet device. The man was uninjured in the armed...
View ArticleS.F. man sentenced to federal prison for nationwide counterfeit DVD operation
by Michael BarbaThe warnings against pirating films are a common sight to any movie goer, but that didn’t stop one San Francisco man from pirating movies and distributing them nationwide. Christopher...
View ArticleFootage: Gunman chases clerk from SoMa gas station, opens fire
by Michael BarbaWhen a clerk sprinted from behind his counter at a South of Market gas station last month, he had good reason to run. Behind him, a gunman opened fire, letting off four to five rounds,...
View ArticlePolice: Armed robber might have shot himself in the leg
by Michael BarbaA 21-year-old man who had been shot in the leg was arrested early Thursday morning in connection with an armed robbery, and police say the gunshot wound might have been self-inflicted....
View ArticleSan Francisco prepares for marijuana legalization
by Joshua Sabatini If California legalizes marijuana next year, it remains to be seen whether San Francisco will be prepared. However, a 22-member task force is in the works to formulate The City’s...
View ArticleNew restrictions target illicit SF massage parlors
by Chris Roberts Sex is readily available in exchange for cash in San Francisco – in many cases, in a business with a license to operate from The City. In one of the worst-kept secrets in San...
View ArticleI Drive SF: The most boring conversation in a cab
by Kelly Dessaint I go where the night takes me. From one ride to the next, I follow the whims of my passengers and take the path of least resistance. Although my trajectory is usually determined by...
View ArticleSF police staffing up for discussion
by Jonah Owen Lamb The call by officials in City Hall to permanently increase the number of San Francisco police on city streets is being questioned by some who wonder why less costly ways to bolster...
View Article27 of Einstein’s personal letters going on auction block
by John Rogers LOS ANGELES — When he wasn’t busy scribbling out the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein seems to have spent a fair amount of time writing letters involving topics such as God, his...
View ArticleNew era brings changes to Examiner
by Staff Report Today, the San Francisco Examiner turns 150 years old. To mark the occasion, we have devised a new look: a bolder design of the Examiner name now adorns the paper’s front page. Also,...
View ArticleSF political consultant charged with child porn ordered to stay away from minors
by Jonah Owen LambA San Francisco political consultant arrested last month on child porn charges must stay away from underage youths and is barred from photographing them as part of a protective order...
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