The San Francisco Examiner
For 35 years starting in 1965, the "San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner" operated under a Joint Operating Agreement whereby the "Chronicle" published a morning paper and the "Examiner" published in the afternoon. The "Examiner" published the Sunday paper's news sections and glossy magazine, and the "Chronicle" contributed the features. Circulation was approximately 100,000 on weekdays and 500,000 on Sundays. By 1995, discussion was already brewing in print media about the possible shuttering of the "Examiner" due to low circulation and an extremely disadvantageous revenue sharing agreement for the "Chronicle".
San Francisco Independent
The publication was founded in 1958 as a neighborhood newspaper called the "Lake Merced Independent". Marsha Fontes, a local historian, took the reins in 1979. She sold it to Ted Fang and the Fang family in 1987. As editor and publisher, Fang almost immediately began growing the "Independent", expanding from a tabloid format into a standard broadsheet size newspaper and extending distribution citywide in 1988. In 1993, Fang purchased a chain of weeklies in San Mateo County owned by the "Chicago Tribune" and in 1998 all the publications were re-branded as "The Independent". In 2000, the Fang family purchased the "SF Examiner" and the Fangs became the first Asian American family to run a major daily newspaper in America.