In His Grandfather's Footsteps

By James Kelly

The television spot shows a dimly lit office at night, its occupant working hard at his desk. A ghostly voice reverberates in the room, but where is it coming from? Why, from a portrait of William Randolph Hearst, founder of the media empire that bears his name. Hearst gazes down on his grandson William Randolph Hearst III, publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, and quizzes him on his recent staff additions. "Who is this Hunter S. Thompson?" asks Grandfather Hearst in a tone half haughty, half perplexed. Will Hearst, who helped hire the duke of "gonzo" journalism as a columnist, replies, "He's irreverent, a little risky, but, uh, fun to read, you know . . . Come on, Grandpa, lighten up." Grandpa somberly responds, "Are you sure you know what you're doing, Will?" Grandson gazes sweetly at the portrait and says, "I don't know. Did you?"

The commercial, funny and effective, aptly reflects the brash, risk-taking style of the third-generation proprietor. Since becoming publisher of the paper 16 months ago, Will Hearst, 36, has added half a dozen new columnists, launched a Sunday magazine and tried to instill a dash of unpredictability in the reportage. He says his goal is to make the Examiner one of the ten best newspapers in the country, a dream the paper proudly touts in print ads by running a picture of Hearst under a headline assigning him blame if ambition exceeds grasp.

At the moment, though, Will Hearst's flip line to his grandfather's ghost about not knowing what he is doing draws some uneasy smiles in the newsroom. Seven months after hiring a new editor for the paper, Hearst fired him two weeks ago and named himself to the post. Image, the four-month-old Sunday magazine, is so far ill focused. And the Examiner, perpetual afternoon also- ran to the morning Chronicle (circ. 554,000, vs. 150,000) has failed to gain new readers.

The goings-on in the Examiner's newsroom often sound more interesting than anything the reporters cover. After Hearst hired David Burgin, 46, away from the Orlando Sentinel last year to be the Examiner's new editor, Burgin signed up Columnists Thompson and Cyra McFadden, author of The Serial, a send-up of Marin County mores. Hearst wooed away Warren Hinckle, an eccentric Chronicle columnist who bludgeons miscreants, real and imagined, in print and never goes anywhere without his basset hound, Bentley. When Frank McCulloch, 66, a veteran journalist who had just retired as executive editor of the California- based McClatchy Newspapers, interviewed Burgin for a magazine story, Burgin persuaded McCulloch within 15 minutes to become the paper's managing editor.

If Burgin could be persuasive, however, he could also be mercurial, a trait that the Examiner poked fun at in another TV ad. As an unsmiling Burgin enters the newsroom, staffers cower behind bookshelves and scatter in fear. "David's got a reputation as sort of a tough guy," narrates Hearst. "But I think that's blown way out of proportion." Still, Burgin was difficult. He disappeared from the office for long stretches, blew up suddenly at staffers, - and once, in a fit of pique, skipped a planned meeting with company brass in New York. Hearst "kept saying I was capricious and erratic," said Burgin after his dismissal. "That's what he was." Hearst refuses comment, and last week Burgin accepted a severance package.

Hunter Thompson delivered his own surprises. Sent out to cover Humphrey, a wayward whale in the Sacramento River, Thompson instead reported in preposterous detail on an elderly Chinese woman who claimed to be Richard Nixon's former mistress. Thompson devoted a subsequent column to a blistering attack on his "brainless" editor's failure to pay room-service tabs. All good fun, sort of, but other reporters grew angry that Thompson was mugging the Examiner while collecting $1,500 per column.

Yet Hearst has little to lose by shaking things up. San Francisco has never been blessed with a top-grade daily newspaper, nor is the marketplace really competitive. In a joint-operating pact, signed in 1965, to guarantee the survival of both papers, the Examiner agreed to switch to afternoon publication. Since then the two papers have shared printing and distribution costs. They also split revenues, thus ensuring that the Examiner will have a healthy bottom line despite running a poor second to the Chronicle.

"We are not halfway to where we want to be," says Hearst. John Markoff does offer insightful reporting on Silicon Valley, while Phil Bronstein has provided first-rate coverage from the Philippines. But the paper maintains only two bureaus outside the city, in Sacramento and Washington, and its overall coverage is a bit skimpy considering the large editorial staff (269 reporters and editors). Hearst does not lack experience, having worked as an Examiner reporter and editor for three years before serving as assistant managing editor at the company's Los Angeles Herald Examiner from 1978 to 1984. Nonetheless, he is criticized by staffers for playing favorites and for poor management. "He's great on ideas," says a reporter, "but he doesn't follow through."

Now that Hearst has appointed himself editor, he is looking for someone to fill the newly created post of executive editor. McCulloch turned the job down but agreed to run day-to-day operations until the slot is filled. Hearst dismisses any suggestion that if he insists on ultimate control of the newsroom he may have trouble finding a successor to Burgin. "I give as free a hand as there is in journalism today," he says. "Ultimately, I could stay ) home in a bathtub and phone in ideas. If that works, great." But lolling in the suds does not seem to be his style, especially since he has put his reputation so much on the line. Grandpa would expect no less from a descendant running the newspaper where the Hearst empire began.

With reporting by Paul A. Witteman/San Francisco