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Newhall: Our problem was by hook or by crook to persuade everybody in town
turn to the Chronicle for their daily dose of journalistic All-Br

Now, an editor comes to realize that the American people--
God love and protect them all--are far more fascinated with the
•incredible,• than they are with the •credible.• I always kept this
in mind when we were organizing promotions. People have a real
appetite for curiosities and miracles.

However, never in my time on the paper did the Chronicle resort
to the vulgar business of misinformation. Actually "misinformation"
is the property of the politicians and the federal government.

We never did run any story in the Chronicle. that was to my
knowledge a "hoax"--and I'm using the word "hoax" now in its
dictionary sense. We never did, and I never would have sanctioned
the publishing of anything that was either untrue or unethical or
false or fake or anything like that. Some of our promotions may
have been exaggerated, if you will. A good bit of what we published
was amusing or entertaining perhaps, but despite of--and in the
middle of--all the so called fun and games of promotion, morally the
Chronicle was a very chaste newspaper--and it probably still is.

Emperor Norton Treasure Hunt

Newhall : The first promotion I think we ever came up with was the Emperor
Norton Treasure Hunt. This was brought to me by a fellow called
J.P . Cahn . He had written for This World and he came back to the
Chronicle as promotion editor after a leave he spent selling
imported cars for British Motors on Van Ness Avenue. And Cahn had
heard about a newspaper treasure hunt that had been a great success
in some midwest city .

The most important element in promoting the Chronicle was to
weave the paper into the historic fabric of San Francisco. We
decided to get an exclusive copyright on historic San Francisco. And
one of the most outlandish historic figures in San Francisco was a
man called Emperor Norton. I cannot remember at the moment what his
real name was, but anyway he was Emperor Norton--a character in a
beaten-up Mexican General's uniform--who used to go around town with
a couple of hungry dogs . I don't know if you know about him or not.
Those were the days when San Francisco had a lot of savvy and a lot
of style , and everybody used to humor the Emperor . He would issue
imperial decrees, and he issued his own bank notes. The restaurants
would accept his money and feed him lunch and dinner and so on . He
is perhaps the greatest single historic personal legend in San
Francisco .