Conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz (pictured; AP photo) has bought the San Francisco Examiner from the Florence Fang family for a reported $20 million. The Fang family bought the paper in 2000 from the Hearst Corporation, which sold it in order to buy the San Francisco Chronicle, the morning paper it had prized for many years. The Hearst's first choice would have been to close the Examiner, but the political powers that be insisted on two newspapers in Frisco, so the Examiner stumbles on. It's unknown what Anschutz will do with the Examiner, but his politics are conservative and anti-gay, which could mean trouble in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:- Same-sex marriages appear decidedly out of step with values openly espoused by Anschutz. In the 1990s, he backed Colorado's Amendment 2, the highly contentious measure that sought to restrict Colorado's cities from adopting civil-rights protections specifically for gays and lesbians. The issue reached national proportions, with opponents boycotting business with the state.
According to published reports, Anschutz donated $10,000 to Colorado for Family Values, backers of the amendment, during the heated final days of the campaign. The amendment passed in 1992 but was later overturned by the state's Supreme Court. The media watchdog group Morality in Media, established in 1962 and based in New York, reportedly has received generous support from Anschutz for its crusades against pornography and obscenity in magazines, movies, television and other outlets.
The nonprofit, interfaith group advocates letter-writing campaigns to government agencies and company executives in its efforts to stamp out material it deems inappropriate. Morality in the Media has made news for, among other reasons, its high-profile statements calling Cosmopolitan (owned by The Chronicle's parent firm, The Hearst Corp.) and Glamour magazines "overly sexualized" and its support for Internet filters on computers in public libraries.
