All in the Family

The presses were already rolling when word came at 2:18 p.m. of Patty Hearst's capture, but the San Francisco Examiner (circ. 163,391) managed a brief bulletin and roared back the next afternoon with the kind of volcanic front page that would have tickled Patty's flamboyant grandfather, Examiner Founder William Randolph Hearst. PATTY, ARE YOU COMING HOME? screamed a headline in WAR-DECLARED type. Editor-Publisher John R. ("Reg") Murphy contributed a copyrighted interview with Patty's parents about their first meeting with her since she was kidnaped more than 19 months ago.

For the flagship of the eight-paper Hearst chain and a paper with family ties to the case, those exclusives have been rare. From the day the kidnap story was broken by the nearby Oakland Tribune until six months ago, the paper remained a compulsory half-step behind everyone else. The Examiner discreetly made no mention in its initial stories that Patty had been living with Steven Weed, and as recently as July failed to report a meeting between her parents and the Jack Scotts, a get-together that was widely covered elsewhere.

Randolph A. Hearst, Patty's father and the paper's president, has even made things downright difficult for his reporters. He often held press conferences on the case just after the Examiner's 3 p.m. final deadline, and refused to share with his editors his knowledge of any FBI disclosures. Though KQED-TV Reporter Marilyn Baker talked regularly with him on his private home phone, Examiner staffers on the story were routinely denied access. Says Examiner Reporter Carol Pogash: "There was a gag on us. We were told to cool it, not to pursue our leads at all."

Trod Softly. The family's caution was understandable. "The S.L.A. was reading the Examiner as the voice of the Hearsts, and Patty's life hung in the balance," says William Randolph Hearst III, 26, her cousin and an Examiner reporter. For that reason, the morning Chronicle, with which the Examiner shares printing facilities, also trod softly at first, sitting for days on an exclusive by Reporter Tim Findley identifying the S.L.A. leaders by name. Findley later quit in disgust. Other energetic Examiner newcomers, hired in a drive to help restore long-lost prestige and sinking circulation (TIME, Feb. 10), have also decried that timidity. As Murray Olderman, who covered the case for the Newspaper Enterprise Association, put it: "Would the San Francisco papers have reacted in the same spirit of cooperation if a Bolivian tin heiress had been kidnaped instead of a local publisher's daughter?"

The Examiner has lately been making up for lost time. In March, the paper was the first to locate the Scotts' Pennsylvania farmhouse, and last week beat competitors to the Harrises' Mission District rooming house. But some of the younger Examiner newsmen still have problems. Reporter Larry Kramer, 25, was out on an undercover assignment at a local high school when he was told to interview the Harrises' landlord. Still dressed like a high school student, Kramer located Landlord David Mele and told him he was from the Examiner. "Oh, yes," said Subscriber Mele. "How much do I owe you?"

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