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".
The San Francisco Examiner
Through the middle third of the twentieth century, the "Examiner" was one of several dailies competing for the city's and the Bay Area's readership; the San Francisco "News", the San Francisco "Call-Bulletin", and the "Chronicle" all claimed significant circulation, but ultimately attrition left the "Examiner" one chief rival — the "Chronicle". Strident competition prevailed between the two papers in the 1950s and 1960s; the "Examiner" boasted, among other writers, such columnists as veteran sportswriter Prescott Sullivan, the popular Herb Caen, who took an eight-year hiatus from the "Chronicle" (1950–1958), and Kenneth Rexroth, one of the best-known men of California letters and a leading San Francisco Renaissance poet, who contributed weekly impressions of the city from 1960 to 1967. Ultimately, circulation battles ended in a merging of resources between the two papers.