Media in the San Francisco Bay Area
James King of William began publishing the "Daily Evening Bulletin" in San Francisco in October, 1855 and built it into the highest circulation paper in the city. He criticized a city supervisor named James P. Casey, who, on the afternoon of the story about him, ran in the paper, shot and mortally wounded King. Casey was lynched by the early vigilante committee. The "Morning Call" was established and began publishing in December 1856, and later merged with the "Bulletin" to become the long-running "Call-Bulletin". The "San Francisco Chronicle" debuted in June, 1865 as the "Dramatic Chronicle", founded by Charles and M.H. de Young aged 19 and 17.
San Francisco Chronicle
Between World War II and 1971, new editor Scott Newhall took a bold and somewhat provocative approach to news presentation. Newhall's "Chronicle" included investigative reporting by such journalists as Pierre Salinger, who later played a prominent role in national politics, and Paul Avery, the staffer who pursued the trail of the self-named "Zodiac Killer", who sent a cryptogram in three sections in letters to the "Chronicle" and two other papers during his murder spree in the late 1960s. It also featured such colorful columnists as Pauline Phillips, who wrote under the name "Dear Abby," "Count Marco" (Marc Spinelli), Stanton Delaplane, Terence O'Flaherty, Lucius Beebe, Art Hoppe, Charles McCabe, and Herb Caen.