Only in San Francisco

Herbert Eugene Caen was a Pulitzer Prize-winning San Francisco journalist whose daily column of local goings-on, social and political happenings, local anecdotes, and insider gossip—often poking fun, but rarely if ever hostile or ill-willed -- appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle for... almost sixty years, except during a relatively short stint at the San Francisco Examiner. His name was a household word throughout the San Francisco Bay Area for decades; his funeral was one of the best-attended in San Francisco history, and republications of his old columns remain a prominent Chronicle feature many years after his death. Born in Sacramento, Caen came to prominence with his It's News to Me column, which first appeared July 5, 1938 in the San Francisco Chronicle. Except for 1950 to 1958 he remained with the Chronicle his entire life. Caen called his work "three-dot journalism" in reference to the ellipses which separated his column's short items. He had a considerable influence on pop culture, particularly its language.
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