After last week's blistering attack on the Examiner by the Chronicle, Ted Fang must know by now that he is in the big, vicious league. Having received $66 million and a newspaper that the Hearst Corporation had intended to discard to get the Chronicle, he has become target of phase two of the SF Chronicle's master plan. Hearst gave Fang the paper, buy-off money, and a laudable rationale that was repeated in a feigned praise-- Fang is the first Asian American owner of a major city daily. And, of course, isn't that great?

But did Fang actually think that they were going to allow him to exist in their market as a competitor? If he did, he is not ready for the big leagues. Last week, however, should have started to open Fang's eyes to what the Hearst Corporation's real plan is. They intend to drive Fang and his Examiner daily off the Bay Area map.

Last week, in a vicious attack-article that was not about news that is news, but Chronicle-created-news, (a type of media creation the Black community is all too familiar with) the SF Chronicle published a scathing attack on the few-weeks old Examiner and Ted Fang.

The SF Chronicle wrote of the Examiner's weak start, the under-use of trucks the Chronicle permitted them to have, the loss advertising revenues, the staff turnovers, and a blithe attitude that pervades the Examiner. The piece was an attack article for sure--whereas the Chronicle's new editor received hail to the chief self-serving tunes, the Examiner's new editor was shown to have been around, and that ain't good. This is a slant that the Chronicle is known for and the Hearst Corporation lived by. But more than that, the piece was a "See, these poor, incompetent minorities don't know what they are doing," piece. That attitude, clearly perceivable in the piece, was juxtaposed with the Chronicle's (We White people's paper) superior position.

Before Hearst bought the Chronicle, it was notorious for its abuse of ethnic minorities, especially in the East Bay. Their abuse continues. The latest positive story they carried of the East Bay--the Tribune's Parade--was compared to the Felix Mitchell's funeral. So, it was only a matter of time before they would get to Ted Fang, an Asian American.

The reporter for the Chronicle sat in Fang's new office and probed him on various sensitive aspects of production, delays in delivery, actual number of deliveries, loss of revenue and every area that a new business would naturally be weak in. And Fang was so bewildered by the probe that he exclaimed the noise that the Chronicle had been spooning out to him and the public as if he were programmed: "I am the first Asian American owner of a major city daily newspaper." Then going beyond that, he said, "I am the only openly gay owner of a major city daily newspaper." It was as if he were asking for recognition of those facts in substitute for not getting his paper out on time and living up to the impossible standards he was being held to by the Hearst Corporation. And it was as if he does not understand the dynamics at work in this harsh Chronicle piece, written by their technology writer (?).

The Chronicle is probably laughing at Fang and his Examiner. They know that Fang has been naive in thinking that he actually had a gift of a viable newspaper from the Hearst Corp. Their plan was always to take over all of San Francisco; part of that plan was to discard the old paper or to kill it once it was handed off on anyone else. That is where Fang comes in. Hearst will make Fang and the Examiner go away or be totally ineffectual within three years or less. And with the real problems the paper is having, that won't be much of a problem for Hearst.

There are foreseeable pitfalls Ted Fang did not seemingly see when the champagne was flowing and the papers was being transferred with the $66 million go away money. That looks good to most people, and Fang cannot be blamed for being attracted to it.

But enter Mayor Willie Brown. He suggested that Fang be given the paper. Why did he do that? Brown has been called many things, but no one has ever said that Brown was less than brilliant. He ran the State Assembly for more years than Jesse Unruh, so he is a strategist who knows how to look at all parts of a situation, especially money situations. In the light of this accepted knowledge of Brown, why didn't Brown suggest and use his considerable influence to get this Examiner paper into the hands of the Sun Reporter's owner? Dr. Carlton Goodlett, as a matter of Willie Brown's own words, got him started in politics. So if there is a maker of Willie Brown, it was Goodlett, and seemingly, Brown would owe him or his newspaper--his legacy--a debt.

Furthermore, the Sun Reporter has several newspapers and has been around for more years than Fang. So why not them? The reason is probably this: Brown probably knew that $66 million was not enough and that the Hearst Corporation planned to destroy the Examiner as soon as they could, regardless of whose hands it was in. Brown probably knew that he could not recommend the Sun Reporter because he owed Goodlett, and politicians pay their debts to other politicians. Finally, he also probably knew that were he to be instrumental in a deal that would get the paper to Black ownership, that if that paper were to be crushed, as the Chronicle will do Fang's Examiner, that the Black community would not stand idly by and allow that to happen or to go unnoticed.

The social psychology of Black Americans is quite different from that of Asian Americans. Whereas Fang will for three years, at the most, dangle in the wind with his Examiner, he will do it quietly and without a word of blame, and possibly without an understanding of the dynamics arrayed against him. Blacks would have been suspicious immediately at the gift; second, at the first signs of malevolence on the part of the Hearst Corporation, they would huddle and plan a strategy to combat the action and surely announce it to the world--there would be law suits, boycotts, protests, and much noise to make this action known.

In a real sense, Ted Fang received his hail to the chief serenade, but he is in an unenviable position. Yes, he has a $66 million deal, giving him $22 million a year (possibly), but that is much like many dotcom millionaires--they are here on paper today, but gone in reality tomorrow. The Chronicle will aid him in being gone.

The hit piece on Ted Fang and his Examiner last week was only the first hit--there will be more and more than hit articles that undermine his efforts. For the Hearst Corporation's Chronicle, publishing is not about news; the Chronicle has shown that it can create (make) news at any time it feels like it. Publishing is about market share and that is about money. The Hearst Corporation's papers are not in the business to lose money but to make it. And to make money, they will drive the Examiner out of San Francisco as a real newspaper that could be competitive. We will stand by to observe the theater of the Examiner's demise. []
F. A. Jones