William Randolph Hearst founded the
Los Angeles Examiner in 1903, in order to assist his campaign for the presidential nomination on the Democratic ticket and to complement his
San Francisco Examiner. The
Los Angeles Herald Examiner building, located at the southwest corner of Broadway and 11th Streets, was largely designed by San Francisco architect
Julia Morgan then associated with Los Angeles architects J. Martyn Haenke and
William J. Dodd whose contribution to the design is not yet determined by scholars.
The
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner was a major
Los Angeles daily newspaper, published Monday through Friday in the afternoon, and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the
Hearst syndicate. The afternoon
Herald-Express and the morning
Examiner, both of which had been publishing in the city since the turn of the Twentieth century, merged in
1962. For a few years after this merger, the
Herald-Examiner claimed the largest afternoon-newspaper circulation in the country.
On December 15, 1967, Herald Examiner employees began a strike that lasted almost a decade and resulted in at least $15 million in losses. At the time of the labor strife, the paper's circulation was about 721,000 daily and it had 2,000 employees. The strike ended in March, 1977, with circulation having dropped to about 330,000 and the number of employees to 700. Many veteran reporters left and never returned. As circulation went into free-fall, advertisers were reluctant to use it, and the unions campaigned effectively to its working-class readership, urging them to cancel subscriptions.
Despite Hearst's belated efforts to restore some of the paper's luster, the
Herald-Examiner went out of business
November 2,
1989, leaving the
Los Angeles Times as the sole city-wide daily newspaper, though the
San Fernando Valley-based
Los Angeles Daily News has tried to take its place.
The
Herald-Examiner is available on microfilm at the downtown branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.
Staff
