The first newspaper published by Americans in California was the Californian, printed in Monterey in 1846 announcing the Mexican American War, written half in English and half Spanish. The press was moved to San Francisco and printing started up again on May 22, 1847 in competition with the weekly California Star, beginning that January. The first newspaper published solely in English in San Francisco was The Star published by Mormon pioneer Sam Brannan before San Francisco was renamed from Yerba Buena in 1847. Both efforts suspended publication in the face of the California Gold Rush. By August, the Californian had resumed publication, but by November 1848, both papers were bought and merged, then renamed the Alta California.
The press that once printed the Californian was moved to the Sacramento area to be used on the Placer Times. The press was again moved and began publishing the Motherlode's first paper, the Sonora Herald, then taken to Columbia to print the Columbia Star. Within a few years of the discovery of gold, mother lode towns all had multiple competing journals. Before 1860, California had 57 newspapers and periodicals serving an average readership of 290,000.
James King of William began publishing the Daily Evening Bulletin in San Francisco in October, 1855 and built it into the highest circulation paper in the city. He criticized a city supervisor named James P. Casey, who, on the afternoon of the story about him, ran in the paper, shot and mortally wounded King. Casey was lynched by the early vigilante committee. The Morning Call was established and began publishing in December 1856, and later merged with the Bulletin to become the long-running Call-Bulletin. The San Francisco Chronicle debuted in June, 1865 as the Dramatic Chronicle, founded by Charles and M.H. de Young aged 19 and 17. Colonel (later General) Harrison Gray Otis took over management of two Los Angeles papers and established the Los Angeles Times.
In 1887, young William Randolph Hearst took over his father's Daily Examiner, which became the flagship of his national chain.
Fremont Older became editor of the San Francisco Bulletin in 1895 and took up the struggle against the powerful Southern Pacific Railroad and along with fellow Californian Lincoln Steffens, became a well-known muckraker and the first objective observer to accuse District Attorney Charles Fickert of the framing of labor radical Thomas Mooney.
The oldest African-American newspaper, still active in the 1930s, was the California Eagle. It appeared first in Los Angeles in 1879. The first French journals, the Californien and the Gazette Republicane both began in 1850, and were followed by the Courrier du Pacifique in 1852. Both the first German and first Italian papers, the California Demokrat (1852) and the Voce del Popolo (1859) were founded in San Francisco and had long runs. Chinese in California have published many newspapers, the first being the Gold Hills News in 1854.
Famous journalists, writers, cartoonists and publishers have passed through San Francisco's media world, including Ambrose Bierce, James King of William, Henry George, William Randolph Hearst, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Prentice Mulford, Joaquin Miller, Will Irwin, Wallace Irwin, Gelett Burgess, Gertrude Atherton, Jack London, Fremont Older, Rube Goldberg, Herbert Asbury, Winifred Bonfils, John Bruce, William Martin Camp, Art Hoppe, John Wasserman, Harry Jupiter, Charles McCabe, Harold Gilliam, Phil Elwood, Randy Shilts, Herb Caen, Warren Hinkle, Bruce Brugmann
By the early decades of the 20th century, San Francisco supported four major dailies and numerous influential weeklies. The dailies were the San Francisco Call (later Call-Bulletin), the San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Scripps-Howard, the Daily News. The weeklies included the Wasp, the ARGONAUT, the Labor Clarion, the Coast Seamen's Journal, Emanu-el, Liberator and the News Letter.
The San Francisco Daily Journal, the Bay Area branch of the nation's oldest and largest legal daily, covers daily legal news. There are numerous community-specific papers that serve niche markets and individual neighborhoods