Los Angeles Herald Examiner

The paper enjoyed a journalistic and spiritual renaissance beginning in 1978, when Jim Bellows was hired as its editor. "On January 1, Jim Bellows came to Los Angeles as editor of the worst urban daily newspaper in America, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner," read a profile in Esquire magazine, in 1978. Bellows and his successor, Mary Ann Dolan, brought an infusion of new talent, youth and energy to the newsroom. The excitement of rejuvenating a newspaper in Los Angeles with a storied past attracted a stream of young journalists, many with Ivy League credentials. The paper's scrappy, no-holds-barred, often unconventional coverage repeatedly challenged the dominant Los Angeles Times on stories about City Hall, local politics, the Los Angeles Police Department, the arts and sports, and its coverage was recognized repeatedly for its excellence by the Los Angeles Press Club. The paper was also slightly schizophrenic: its entertainment section was hip, its sports section was blue-collar and its news hole straddled the tabloid and kick-ass journalism genres. However, as an after-effect of the 10-year long strike, advertising and circulation continued to decline.

The paper switched back to a morning publication in 1982, 20 years after the merger; this did little to improve sagging revenue and readership.[5] Furthermore, having two editions led to higher production costs. The afternoon edition was dropped during 1989.

In 1989, the Hearst Corporation attempted to sell the moribund newspaper, but found no suitable buyers (News Corporation intended to buy the paper and turn it into a tabloid, but backed out). This led to the company's shutting down the newspaper.

On November 2, 1989, the paper printed its last edition, with a banner head saying "SO LONG, L.A.!" One factor behind the shutdown was increased pressure from the competing Los Angeles Times, whose circulation was, at the time of the Herald Examiner's shutdown, about four times larger.[6][7]

Editorial writer Joel Bellman recalled that by then the newspaper's[7]

once-splendid 1913 Julia Morgan-inspired Mission Revival building had gone to seed, the ground-floor arched windows long since covered over as a result of vandalism . . . . Its beautiful lobby and graceful staircase to the second-floor newsroom were virtually all that was left of the original interior; the rest looked like a cheap 1950s-era retrofit.

This specific section relates to the period when the newspaper was known as the Los Angeles Examiner

The Examiner was the first newspaper to break the story of the 1947 dismemberment murder of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, who was ultimately dubbed the Black Dahlia by Los Angeles Herald-Express crime reporter Bevo Means.[3]

Examiner news reporter Will Fowler was on another assignment with photographer Felix Paegel on January 15, 1947, when they heard a radio call of a mutilated female body found in a vacant lot on Norton Avenue in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles. Fowler and Paegel arrived before police and observed the female body. Fowler claimed in his autobiography that he knelt down to close the victim's eyes before Paegel began shooting photographs. City editor Richardson in his own autobiography had another, more mundane version of the Examiner obtaining the story. He said that reporter Bill Zelinsky called the city desk from Los Angeles Police headquarters to report the discovery of the body and a reporter and photographer were dispatched to the lot where a crowd of newsmen was already assembled.

Whatever the facts were, the morning Examiner scooped the other Los Angeles newspapers by publishing an extra edition two hours before any of the afternoon newspapers hit the streets.

By the late afternoon of January 15, an autopsy on the female victim was completed by the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. The victim's fingerprints were scheduled to be airmailed to the FBI fingerprint identification division in Washington, D.C. Examiner Assistant Managing Editor Warden Woolard suggested to Los Angeles police Capt. Jack Donahoe, who was chief of the department's homicide division, that the victim's fingerprints be transmitted to the FBI by using the Examiner's new soundphoto machine. During the early morning hours of January 16, the International News Photo wire service received the prints via photo transmission from the Examiner. Soon afterward, the FBI identified the victim as Elizabeth Short.

In the early afternoon of January 16 an Examiner extra hit the streets, again beating the competition. The Examiner identified Short and provided details of her life growing up in Massachusetts, and details of her adult life in Santa Barbara and later in Los Angeles. The Examiner noted that Short had lived in Los Angeles for a period of time before moving to various other cities in the pursuit of jobs and men. She returned to Los Angeles in 1946 and lived in hotels and rooming houses while visiting a man she had met while living in Florida.

Following Short's identification, reporters from the Los Angeles Examiner contacted her mother, Phoebe Short, and told her that her daughter had won a beauty contest. Only after prying as much personal information as they could from Phoebe did the reporters tell her that her daughter had been murdered. The newspaper offered to pay her air fare and accommodations if she would travel to Los Angeles to help with the police investigation. That was yet another ploy, since the newspaper kept her away from police and other reporters to protect its scoop.[8]

Each day the Examiner came up with more details of Short's murder, and painted her as a lovelorn woman searching for a husband. The Los Angeles Daily News was getting hammered daily by the Examiner. The newspaper's editors were so desperate for fresh stories that they sent rookie reporter Roy Ringer to the Examiner's offices on Broadway. Ringer was new and unknown to Examiner newsmen. He walked into the Examiner's composing room from off the street and lifted the Black Dahlia story proofs off the spikes and walked out. The Daily News city desk then rewrote the Examiner’s stories. After three days of stealing Examiner copy, Ringer walked into the composing room on the fourth day for a fresh batch of Black Dahlia stories. As he was about to grab a handful of proofs from the spike, someone from behind grabbed his shoulder. Behind Ringer was Examiner city editor James Richardson. "Nice try", said Richardson, as he sent Ringer back to the Daily News empty-handed.

At one point an anonymous tip led Examiner reporters to the Greyhound bus station in downtown Los Angeles, where a steamer trunk owned by Short was discovered. Inside were letters, photographs and clothing belonging to the victim. The Examiner obtained the contents and led coverage of Short's life leading up to her death based on her own personal records and in her own voice. In another instance, more photos, newspaper clippings and letters were anonymously mailed to the Examiner. Richardson often said in subsequent interviews about his years at the Examiner that he believed the letters were from Short's killer.

The Black Dahlia case was never solved, but for three months it led most of the Los Angeles newspaper's front pages until other sensational homicides replaced it.[3]

During the 1970 Los Angeles murder trial of Charles Manson and his followers, who were charged with the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others, Herald Examiner reporter William Farr reported in an article that Manson had planned to murder Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra.

Farr was summoned by judge Charles Older to divulge his sources for the article. Farr refused. But at that time, Farr had already left the Herald Examiner to work for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and later for the Los Angeles Times. Farr cited the California reporters shield law that protected him from revealing his sources, but Older ruled that since Farr was no longer a journalist he was required to hand over his notes.

Farr continued to refuse to reveal his sources and was jailed for 46 days in 1972-73 on a contempt of court citation. Although he was released from custody, his case dragged through the courts for several years. The courts, however, recognized that a journalist could spend the rest of his life in jail if he refuses to divulge his sources on moral principle. In 1974, a California State Court of Appeal determined in In re Farr (36 C.A. 3d 577, 1974) that a procedure had to be adopted that allowed the courts to hold a hearing to consider a contempt of court citation involving the shield law. The first issue was whether a reporter was refusing to reveal sources by invoking the shield on "moral principle". The second consideration by the court was whether incarcerating the reporter would likely induce him or her to reveal the sources. In 1976, the state appellate court finally set aside the contempt citation.

The Farr case in effect strengthened the California shield law and served as a precedent in future shield law cases involving journalists.[9]

The Los Angeles Express was Los Angeles's oldest newspaper published under its original name until it combined with the Herald. It was established on March 27, 1871.

Established in 1873, the Los Angeles Herald or the Evening Herald represented the largely Democratic views of the city and focused primarily on issues local to Los Angeles and Southern California. The Los Angeles Daily Herald was first published on October 2, 1873, by Charles A. Storke. It was the first newspaper in Southern California to use the innovative steam press; the newspaper's offices at 125 South Broadway were popular with the public because large windows on the ground floor allowed passersby to see the presses in motion. In 1922, the Herald officially joined the Hearst News empire.[12]

In 1931, Hearst merged the Los Angeles Daily Herald with the Los Angeles Evening Express to form the Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express, which was then the largest circulating evening newspaper west of the Mississippi.[12]

• James Bacon, entertainment reporter and author
• Jim Bellows, editor, later developed Entertainment Tonight
• Winfred Blevins, entertainment editor, author of 40 books and screenplays
• Alex Ben Block, reporter, later editor of The Hollywood Reporter
• Denis Boyles, entertainment writer, 1979-1981
• Jim Burns, travel editor, later newspaper adviser for "The Occidental Weekly"
• Harrison Carroll, entertainment writer 1925–1969
• Ruben Castaneda, reporter, author of S Street Rising
• Jim Cramer, author and host of CNBC's "Mad Money"
• Francis L. Dale, final publisher of Herald Examiner, also part-owner of Cincinnati Reds
• Mel Durslag, sports columnist, also columnist for TV Guide
• Donald Forst, editor, also editor of Newsday and The Village Voice
• John Tracy Gaffey, first Herald editor, 1893; City Council member who helped develop the Port of Los Angeles
• Carl Greenberg, reporter, later political editor of the Los Angeles Times
• William Hare, sportswriter
• Harold A. Henry, later a community journalist and a Los Angeles City Council member
• L. D. Hotchkiss, editor
• Bob Hunter, baseball writer, 1943–1977
• David Israel, columnist, later a television writer and producer
• Andrew Jaffe, business editor, later executive with Adweek
• James Kinsella, president and founding general manager of MSNBC
• Christopher Knight, art critic
• Doug Krikorian, sports columnist
• Rian Malan, reporter from South Africa, later author of the book My Traitor's Heart
• Gardner McKay, literary critic 1977–1982, actor
• Joe Morgenstern, film critic, later won a Pulitzer Prize with The Wall Street Journal
• Jim Murray, sports columnist, later won a Pulitzer Prize with the Los Angeles Times
• Scot J. Paltrow, financial journalist
• Rip Rense, critic and author
• John Schwada, City Hall reporter, later with the Los Angeles Times & Fox 11 News
• Mark Schwed, TV critic
• Al Stump, sportswriter, later a biographer of Ty Cobb
• Ken Tucker, rock critic
• Agness Underwood, reporter and then one of the first female city editors of a major metropolitan daily, at the predecessor Herald-Express; later an editor at the Herald Examiner
• Nicole Yorkin, reporter, later television writer, producer
• Gene Youngblood, critic

• Chris Gulker
• James Roark

• Karl Hubenthal
• Bill Schorr

• Will Fowler; Reporters: Memoirs of a Young Newspaperman; Roundtable Publishing; ISBN 0-915677-61-X (hardback, 1991)
• James Richardson; For the Life of Me: Memoirs of a City Editor ; G.P. Putnam's Sons; (hardback, 1954)
• Rob Leicester Wagner; Red Ink White Lies: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers 1920-1962; ISBN 0-944933-80-7; Dragonflyer Press; (paperback, 2000)
• Wayne Overbeck; Major Principles of Media Law; Wadsworth Publishing Co Inc.; ISBN 978-0-495-05030-8 (hardback, 2006)
• C T White; Website: William J. Dodd 1861-1930 ~American Architect and Designer~ Sources on History of LA Herald Examiner: LA Times and LA Public Library