From the Editor

Sacbee.com's live webcast of an interview with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave the public a front-row seat to the sometimes rambling, but always fascinating celebrity governor.

David Holwerk has no trouble remembering his first Monday on the job as The Bee's editorial page editor: Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the terrorist attacks on the United States.

If it's Thursday morning, Jon Ortiz is bound to be on the phone talking with readers about that day's edition of "The State Worker" column.

As elected leaders get back to work on balancing California's budget, voters who rejected their last try have a chance to be heard before the deal is done, not afterward.

Few parts of the paper divide readers as much as The Bee's ONTV guide: Those who use it rely on it, and others skip it entirely.

I don't know about you, but when someone tells me they're looking out for my financial interests, I put my hand on my wallet.

The woman who left me a phone message the other day echoed a familiar theme when she exhorted The Bee not to abandon print readers in favor of our online edition.

Most mornings before work, I run out to the patio to check on the tiny fruit beginning to form on my "improved Meyer lemon," the first citrus tree I've ever grown.

Tired of the recession? You have company.

You'll see some changes in The Bee this week as we adjust the paper to reduce expenses amid the ongoing recession.

We expect strong reaction to today's front-page story about people with criminal pasts working in Sacramento's Child Protective Services division.

A few years ago I was invited to a meeting meant to get citizens involved in debating the future of journalism. Few showed up.

The Bee has covered countless disasters and crises in its 152 years, and amid the great recession of 2009 we're returning to a fundamental idea: How can we help people get through these tough times?

Until recently, the future of newspapers has been debated mostly on the Internet and in industry publications – but not in newspapers themselves.

Rarely in our lifetimes have decisions by government seemed so closely and immediately linked to the well-being of ordinary families and communities.

Dozens of readers and Bee news staffers responded to my column a few weeks ago posing various journalism ethics questions.

An eight-page special section in today's Bee looks ahead to Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday, but the story the section tells is as much about ordinary citizens as it is about the president-elect.

In the coming weeks, a group of Bee journalists will be updating our newsroom's ethics guidelines.

Years ago, when I was a reporter, a woman named Carol wrote to let me know how distasteful she found a passage in one of my stories.

When I speak to community groups, I usually begin by describing new or improved Bee coverage, and here at year's end the list is pretty long.

Here's a question: Why don't we remember the good news?

If you follow the debate over the great estuary south of Sacramento, simply called the Delta, you know some of the issues: Water supply, environmental quality and flood threats along 1,300 square miles of low-lying islands and patchwork levees.

A local reader wanted to know what was happening in the case of a man shot to death awhile back, so she asked The Bee.

Each holiday season for more than two decades, in good times and in tough years, The Bee has helped this community carry out some good deeds.

On Oct. 24, a week and a half before the election, editorial page columnist Dan Weintraub posted these questions in a Bee online forum called The Conversation:

One of this political season's lessons is that we in the media need to begin a different conversation with citizens about news coverage.

He's not a byline or a name on the masthead, but for the past three decades Mort Saltzman has been a major force in The Bee's news efforts.

Valeeya Brazile isn't around to tell her own story, which ended Feb. 5 when the 3-year-old from Fair Oaks was killed and her mother's boyfriend became the suspect, later charged, in her murder.