Final Edition

Reporters at the Herald Examiner, Los Angeles' No. 2 daily, are used to having doors shut in their faces. After the editors announced earlier this year that they would publish a series of tough articles on the city's problems during Mayor Tom Bradley's campaign for a fifth term, the paper's reporters were barred from the mayor's office. But that did not stop them from scooping their powerful rival, the Los Angeles Times, by printing damaging reports about Bradley's finances just three weeks before the election. Last week, however, Herald Examiner staffers faced a far more formidable lockout: the Hearst Corp., unable to find a buyer for the unprofitable daily, announced that it would shut the paper's doors after Thursday's edition.

Founded by William Randolph Hearst in 1903, the Herald Examiner was once the country's largest afternoon daily. Since 1967, however, it has seen its circulation slide from 729,000 to a paltry 238,000. The paper switched to morning publication in 1981, but that attempt to accommodate modern reading habits did little to stem the continuing losses. Analysts also blamed intense pressure from the aggressive and highly respected Times (circ. 1.1 million) and from successful suburban papers, such as the Daily News of Los Angeles (186,000), based in the San Fernando Valley, and the Orange County Register (348,000).

This summer, after scrapping plans to turn the paper into a tabloid, Hearst put it up for sale. Company executives, who flew from New York City to announce the shutdown in the paper's newsroom, said they were unable to find a buyer. Among those who declined to purchase the operation, which reportedly lost $2 million a month, were industrialist Marvin Davis and Jose Lozano, publisher of the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion. Now that the Herald Examiner is gone, Los Angeles becomes the latest and largest addition to the growing list of U.S. cities with only one major daily.