Melanie Sill: The times are changing, and so is your newspaper

Sacramento Bee readers began sending suggestions within hours of the announcement Oct. 30 that I was the paper's new editor.

The first e-mail pleaded for a beefier opinion section. Another reader argued for expanded business coverage. Another wanted a chess column.

Some correspondents worried that cost-cutting had diminished The Bee's quality. Others thought our front page too often was elevating local news over national or world coverage.

"Does the Sacramento Bee aspire to be a serious newspaper or a local gossip rag?" inquired one reader.

So began my discussion with people here about Sacramento Bee journalism, a conversation I hope to expand beginning today through this weekly column.

First, some notes on the author.

Looking back

Before taking this job, I was the executive editor of The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., where I began as a reporter and spent most of my career.

I was born in Nebraska, raised in Hawaii and educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm married to a software developer who was educated as an electrical engineer.

I was drawn to The Bee by the same magnets that attract most people who move here: geography and opportunity.

The chance to join The Bee newsroom, known for its watchdog reporting and public service, offered both professional advancement and continued connection to the kind of journalism I love.

I'm not a job-hopper. I stayed at the Raleigh paper for 25 years because I found the work more rewarding as I got to know the people and organizations we covered.

The best stories I helped produce connected squarely with community; they put information in people's hands, empowering action or debate.

The Bee is that kind of news organization, one that has helped shape the destiny of this region as well as tell its story. It's part of McClatchy, a company built around a mission rather than the reverse.

The career opportunity came with a personal bonus: Sacramento's proximity to my sisters, father, aunt, cousins and their kids, who all live within a couple hours drive of here.

Looking ahead

By now you're probably wondering what this new editor is going to do to your newspaper, or perhaps for your newspaper.

The Bee editorial staff and I head into 2008 carrying old ambitions into new times. We want to stand out for quality. We want to offer the best reporting and storytelling around on people and issues that matter to our region.

We want to be the source you turn to because we're providing information you need, community connection you seek and entertainment you enjoy.

I expect to lead significant change in the printed Bee, our main news site sacbee.com and other digital forms of delivery.

Change isn't new to The Bee or any other news operation. Newspapers live in their own times, or ought to.

Our ambition isn't change for its own sake, but improvement. The world outside our windows has been transformed by a technology revolution: The Internet, cell phones and other communication vehicles have linked people in ways almost unimagined 20 years ago.

Our core mission might be more vital than ever. There's plenty of information, but people need reliable information. There's plenty of noise but not enough meaning.

The Bee has more competitors than ever, but it also stands apart as the most substantial news organization here and as an institution that exists primarily to produce journalism in the public interest.

Here in 2008, we will improve and expand news, information, opinion and entertainment on our Web site, sacbee.com, which is moving forward rapidly already.

Our online storm coverage on that recent windy Friday included a running story updated frequently and a simple map charting major damage reports across the region.

Our sacbee.com collection of storm photos drew more than 530,000 looks, and we told the story in video form as well as through traditional means.

In the newspaper the next morning, readers found the story of the storms' full sweep. In photos and words, the paper explained what had happened and looked ahead with tips and information for the next approaching storm.

As we raise our ambition for online work, we'll also be working to build a printed newspaper that makes sense for the way people live in 2008.

That newspaper will be slimmer than the big editions of the 1980s and '90s, our industry's boom era, and our choices will focus on delivering quality rather than volume.

On Saturday, we launched a new Home & Garden section. It's a handsome broadsheet section that will expand our coverage of gardening, decorating, home design, crafts and other topics related to home life.

We had produced two features sections on Saturday, both pretty good, but both thinner than they used to be. The new section will be lively and robust, and the broadsheet format will showcase photography more effectively than the old Home & Garden tabloid.

Let us know what you think of the new section. Share your ideas for improvements in the Bee and on sacbee.com.

I'm looking forward to our conversation.

About the writer:

• Reach The Bee's editor, Melanie Sill, at (916) 321-1002.