Chronicle Publishing Company
The Chronicle Publishing Company was a print and broadcast media corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California that was in operation from 1865 until 2000. Owned for the whole of its existence by the de Young family, CPC was most notable for owning the namesake "San Francisco Chronicle" newspaper and KRON-TV, the longtime National Broadcasting Company (NBC) affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco–Oakland–San Jose) television media market.
Los Angeles Herald-Express
The "Los Angeles Daily Herald" was first published on October 2, 1873, by Charles A. Storke. The "Herald" 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. William Ivan "Ike" St. Johns and Adela Rogers St. Johns, a popular husband and wife reporting team, were among the notable "Herald" staff in the early years. Storke lost the paper to creditors, who together formed the Los Angeles City and County Publishing Company in 1874. The "Herald" continued to focus on local news including agriculture, business, and culture. Under the leadership of Robert M. Widney, the paper's circulation increased dramatically. Widney interviewed local farmers and business owners for free and used this information to report on the region. The "Los Angeles Weekly Herald", making use of this material, sold over 1,000 copies a week. Beginning in the teens and guided by the Hearst-trained editors Edwin R. Collins and John B. T. Campbell, the local coverage for which the "Herald" was known started to emphasize scandal, crime, and the emerging Hollywood scene. By the 1920s, editors Wes Barr and James H. Richardson were so well known for their investigative reporting that they became the prototypes for the morally ambiguous, chain-smoking reporters who figured in so many film noir movies of the 1930s. In 1922, the "Herald" officially joined the Hearst News empire, although several sources suggest that Hearst had secretly purchased the paper in 1911 when Collins and Campbell took the helm. 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.