Examiner close to deal to buy Bay Guardian
The Bay Guardian, the independent, left-leaning alternative weekly, says it’s in the final stages of negotiations to be purchased by the San Francisco Examiner and is losing its founding publishers, Bruce Brugmann and his wife, Jean Dibble.
Announcements posted Tuesday by both newspapers said the Examiner’s owner, the San Francisco Newspaper Co., is in “exclusive negotiations’’ to buy the Guardian and expects to sign a contract in May.
Brugmann and Dibble, who founded the Guardian in 1966, are resigning as publishers and ending their involvement in day-to-day operations but will serve as consultants, the newspapers said. They will be replaced by Tim Redmond, who will also continue as the Guardian’s exec-
utive editor.
The papers said they had no plans to change the Guardian’s editorial content or staff. The weekly “will remain the voice of progressive politics and alternative culture in San Francisco,’’ the Guardian said.
The Examiner said the two papers would remain “separate and distinct in most ways.’’ But the “potential synergies will be beneficial to readers and advertisers,’’ said Todd Vogt, the Examiner’s president and publisher. He said the Examiner was happy to give the Guardian “a new home and the chance to continue its mission.’’
Brugmann said the Guardian’s staff would move from its building on Mississippi Street to the Examiner’s offices on Stevenson Alley. He confirmed that the Guardian had sold its building but declined to specify the price. Several media websites said it had been bought by a third-party developer, Union Property Capital, for $6.5 million.
“This will give us some staying power,’’ said Brugmann, 76. He said it was “a miracle that we could find, in today’s climate, a good, solid publisher who will buy newspapers.’’
Brugmann, who began as a reporter with Stars and Stripes while in the Army in Korea, is an award-winning journalist who helped to found the California First Amendment Coalition, a media advocacy group, and has received a career achievement award from the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He became a familiar face in the mid-2000s on promotional ads that appeared on billboards and Muni buses urging San Franciscans to “Read my paper, dammit!”
His locally owned newspaper took on the rival SF Weekly and its parent company, Village Voice Media, in an antitrust suit in 2004 that accused the Weekly of using its corporate ties to sell ads below cost in an attempt to drive the Guardian out of business.
Asan Francisco jury found in 2008 that the Weekly had engaged in predatory pricing and awarded the Guardian $6.2 million in damages. A judge later tacked on almost $10 million in antitrust penalties. The publications reached a confidential settlement for an undisclosed sum in January 2011.