The San Francisco Examiner is a newspaper serving San Francisco and the surrounding area, published since 1863. Under owner William Randolph Hearst it became the flagship of the Hearst newspaper chain and was promoted with the slogan “Monarch of the Dailies.” Early in the 21st century the paper switched to free distribution, and at the end of 2020 it was acquired — along with the SF Weekly — by Clint Reilly Communications.
The Examiner circulated well beyond the city for much of the 20th century. An East Bay edition once appeared under an Oakland Examiner masthead, and by 1982 the paper carried zoned weekly supplements labeled “City,” “Peninsula,” “Marin/Sonoma,” and “East Bay.” A separate Nevada edition was distributed in the morning, repackaging the previous day’s San Francisco news alongside current-day feature content.
Relevance to the Zodiac case
The Examiner was one of the San Francisco Bay Area newspapers that received correspondence attributed to the Zodiac Killer during the case. As a major regional daily of the period, it featured in the contemporaneous press coverage alongside the San Francisco Chronicle. (This article itself documents the newspaper’s general history rather than the specifics of any Zodiac letters.)