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I usually do not mean to be rude, but I was just sick and tired of
the Hearst people making all these, well, you know, •we've got this
fine paper here, we're in the saddle and so on.• They were just
dying, they really were.

Money, Covering Losses

Riess: You said once, I guess a couple of interviews ago, that for a
newspaper making money really isn't such an issue.

Newhall: That's correct.

Riess: Because the value of a paper is power and--

Newhall: But there are publishers and there are--well, finish your question.

Riess: Well, you know what I'm getting at. So money wasn't necessarily the
reason for the merger.

Newhall: Yes, it was. I will try to explain it, though, in line with what I
said earlier. There are publishers and there are publishers. The
Hearst Corporation is one of the large corporations in the United
States, and it is built on the basis of vast ranching interests:
it's built on the Homestake Gold Mine, digging the gold out of the
ground. The Hearst people also have a very large group of magazines
that are very successful. So the Hearst people make lots of money.
But they didn't make it either in Los Angeles or San Francisco with
the newspapers. It really didn't matter that they were losing
money; if they had been only businessmen they would have gotten rid
of these two West Coast papers years ago.

Now the Chronicle was at that time still about the only major
thing that the deYoung family owned, except for TV, which had helped
keep us alive when we were in such bad shape.* So it meant a lot to
Charlie that the Chronicle should be a productive newspaper, not
only in the world of the intellect but also in the world of finance.
So to answer your question again, about the same way, if the
newspapers were not newspapers, if they were not a unique business,
and if they did not mean what newspapers mean in terms of the

*In the seven years between 1958 and 1965 the Chronicle had lost
more than $3 million, while profits from KRON and other properties
had totalled $15 million. After the Joint Operating Agreement, in
1968 the parent company earned $4.7 million on $45 million revenues,
and the Chronicle was making money. San Francisco Magazine, Dec.
1987, p. 96.