Media in the San Francisco Bay Area refers to media produced and covered within the San Francisco Bay Area, historically focused on San Francisco, but with two other major media centers, Oakland and San Jose. The Bay Area is a technologically advanced and innovative region, with many Internet websites based in the area, including social networking giant Facebook and the largest search engine site Google. The region also hosts to one of the oldest radio stations in the United States still in existence, KCBS (AM) (740 kHz), founded by engineer Charles Herrold in 1909.
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The first newspaper published by Americans in California was The Californian, printed in Monterey in 1846 announcing the Mexican–American War, written half in English and half Spanish. The press was moved to San Francisco and printing started up again on May 22, 1847 in competition with the weekly California Star, beginning that January. The first newspaper published solely in English in San Francisco was The Star published by Mormon pioneer Sam Brannan before San Francisco was renamed from Yerba Buena in 1847. Both efforts suspended publication in the face of the California Gold Rush. By August, The Californian had resumed publication, but by November 1848, both papers were bought and merged, then renamed the Alta California.
The press that once printed The Californian was moved to the Sacramento area to be used on the Placer Times. The press was again moved and began publishing the Motherlode's first paper, the Sonora Herald, then taken to Columbia to print the Columbia Star. Within a few years of the discovery of gold, mother lode towns all had multiple competing journals. Before 1860, California had 57 newspapers and periodicals serving an average readership of 290,000.
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.
In 1887, young William Randolph Hearst took over his father's Daily Examiner, which became the flagship of his national chain.
Fremont Older became editor of the San Francisco Bulletin in 1895 and took up the struggle against the powerful Southern Pacific Railroad and along with fellow Californian Lincoln Steffens, became a well-known muckraker and the first objective observer to accuse District Attorney Charles Fickert of the framing of labor radical Thomas Mooney.
The oldest African-American newspaper, still active in the 1930s, was the California Eagle. It appeared first in Los Angeles in 1879. The first French journals, the Californien and the Gazette Republicane both began in 1850, and were followed by the Courrier du Pacifique in 1852. Both the first German and first Italian papers, the California Demokrat (1852) and the Voce del Popolo (1859) were founded in San Francisco and had long runs. Chinese in California have published many newspapers, the first being the Gold Hills News in 1854.
Noted journalists, writers, cartoonists and publishers have passed through San Francisco's media world, including:
By the early decades of the 20th century, San Francisco supported four major dailies and numerous influential weeklies. The dailies were the San Francisco Call (later Call-Bulletin), the San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Scripps-Howard-owned Daily News. The weeklies included the Wasp, the ARGONAUT, the Labor Clarion, the Coast Seamen's Journal, Emanu-el, Liberator and the News Letter.
Today, several newspapers, covering community, regional, national, and international news, and community-specific papers, catering to niche markets and individual neighborhoods, are in circulation in the San Francisco Bay Area. The major English-language newspapers include the daily San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, San Jose Mercury News, and Oakland Tribune. The weekly alternative papers are the Metro Silicon Valley, East Bay Express, San Francisco Bay Guardian, and SF Weekly. Singtao Daily, World Journal, and Kangzhongguo are among the Asian newspapers that serve the Bay Area.
Newspapers
Aside from the major English broadsheets, the Bay Area also publishes newspapers catering to the large ethnic communities in the region, including:
Several college newspapers also exist as well in the Bay Area, including:
Magazines
Television
The San Francisco Bay Area is currently the sixth-largest television market in the United States, with all of the major U.S. television networks having affiliates serving the region, and it is host to various local, national and international programming. With a large, diverse population spread throughout the region, the Bay Area provides channels specific to their needs, including Asian and Hispanic television stations, as well as foreign programming on digital subchannels.
When television stations identify themselves, they usually identify the station in this order (it is often altered depending on the station's city of license, but always includes San Francisco in the list): (channel/station ID), San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose. This also happens when radio stations (listed below) identify themselves on the top of each hour. Prior to the 1990s, these stations would almost exclusively identify based on the exact city of license, with a notable exception being major independent (now Fox O&O) KTVU, which would identify using KTVU, Oakland, San Francisco as San Francisco has traditionally been the better-known and more "important" city in the region.
Currently, television stations that primarily serve the San Francisco Bay Area include: (Note: list does not include the stations' digital sub-channels.)
Notes: †- channel involved in a duopoly with another channel, owned by the same company or network. * - channel is a network owned-and-operated station.
In addition to local television channels, several television networks have regional news bureaus in the San Francisco Bay Area, including BBC, CNN, ESPN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera America, Russia Today, CCTV America, and PBS.
Radio
The San Francisco Bay Area is currently the fourth-largest radio market in the United States, with all of the major U.S. radio networks having affiliates serving the region.
When radio frequencies broadcast their identities, they would usually identify their frequency in this order (it can be altered depending on the network's city of license, but always include San Francisco in the list): (channel/station ID), San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose.
Currently, radio stations that primarily serve the San Francisco Bay Area include:
Online
Besides websites that exist in addition to print publications, many publications that only exist online have come into existence in recent years. They include:
International news digital video channel AJ+, part of Al Jazeera Media Network, is also based in the city.