Fangs unload the 'Ex'
Exactly what its conservative new owner will do with the paper remains unclear

By Tali Woodward

Ending months of speculation – but also renewing debate about what may become of the newspaper – the politically powerful Fang family has sold the San Francisco Examiner to Denver entrepreneur Philip Anschutz. The Fangs also relinquished control of their other high-profile businesses: the San Francisco and San Mateo Independents and Grant Printing, the print shop started by family patriarch John Fang.

Media-watchers long predicted the Fangs would try to unload the Ex once the $66.7 million subsidy they received from Hearst Corp. expired last summer. Hearst agreed to help the Fangs with start-up costs in order to clear the Justice Department's antitrust review of its purchase of the San Francisco Chronicle. But instead of using the money to mount a credible challenge to the Chron, the family spent much of it on themselves, their allies, and their other businesses (See "All in the Family," 4/30/03).

In the three and a half years since the Fangs gained control of the paper, they struggled to find a niche, attract readers, and establish solid financial footing for it.

Yet even as the Fang Examiner floundered as a business, the paper's news coverage seemed to hit a sort of stride in recent months. As the Chron has devoted less space to San Francisco news, the Ex has taken pains to cover local politics, and that's won it some loyalty, particularly among political junkies. But at the same time, the paper, which became a free tabloid in February 2003, virtually merged with the Independent, and now the two papers present essentially the same content in different formats.

It's unclear what Anschutz – who owns no other newspapers, though he once toyed with the idea of buying the Denver Post – might do with the paper. Anschutz has been tremendously successful in real estate, agriculture, professional sports, and film. He also owns the embattled fiber-optic company Qwest Communications.

The fact that Anschutz is a Republican who opposes gay marriage and gives his projects evangelical names like "Empower" and "Crusader" is already raising eyebrows in San Francisco. But the everyday operations of the Examiner will likely remain in the hands of P. Scott McKibben, the CEO hired by the Fangs last September who's now been promoted to president and publisher.

McKibben, who could not be reached by press time, told Editor and Publisher, "We intend to get bigger and better and bulkier."

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