The Sacramento Bee

The Sacramento Bee

The July 27, 2005 front page of
The Sacramento Bee
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet
Owner(s) The McClatchy Company
Publisher Cheryl Dell[1]
Editor Joyce Terhaar
Founded 1857 (as The Daily Bee)
Headquarters 2100 Q Street
Sacramento, California 95819
USA
Circulation 279,032 Daily
324,613 Sunday[2]
ISSN 0890-5738
OCLC number 37706143
Website sacbee.com

The Sacramento Bee is a daily newspaper published in Sacramento, California, in the United States. Since its founding in 1857, The Bee has become the largest newspaper in Sacramento, the fifth largest newspaper in California, and the 27th largest paper in the U.S.[2] It is distributed in the upper Sacramento Valley, with a total circulation area that spans about 12,000 square miles (31,000 km2): south to Stockton, California, north to the Oregon border, east to Reno, Nevada, and west to the San Francisco Bay Area.[3][4]

The Bee is the flagship of the nationwide McClatchy Company.[3] Its "Scoopy Bee" mascot,[5] created by Walt Disney in 1943, has been used by all three Bee newspapers (Sacramento, Modesto, and Fresno).[3]

History

Under the name The Daily Bee, the first issue of the newspaper was published on February 3, 1857, proudly boasting that "the object of [the Sacramento Bee] is not only independence, but permanence".[3] At this time, the Bee was in competition with the Sacramento Union, a newspaper founded in 1851. Although the Bee soon surpassed the Union in popularity, the Union survived until its closing in 1994, leaving the Sacramento Bee to be the longest-running newspaper in Sacramento's history.

The first editor of the Sacramento Bee was Rollin Ridge,[6] but James McClatchy took over the position by the end of the first week.

Also within a week of its creation, the Bee uncovered a state scandal which led to the impeachment of Know-Nothing California State Treasurer Henry Bates.[7]

21st century

On March 13, 2006, The McClatchy Company announced its agreement to purchase Knight Ridder, the United States' second-largest chain of daily newspapers. The purchase price of $4.5 billion in cash and stock will give McClatchy 32 daily newspapers in 29 markets, with a total circulation of 3.3 million.[8]

On February 3, 2007, the paper celebrated its 150th anniversary, and a copy of the original issue was included in every newspaper. On February 4, 2007, a 120-page section was included about the paper's history from its founding to today.

On July 29, 2008, the Sacramento Bee redesigned and changed its layout. The Opinion Pages were added to the main news section of the paper; the "Metro" and "Business" sections were combined into "Our Region" and the name of the lifestyle section was changed from "Scene" to "Living Here".

On May 21, 2009, the newspaper published an early-version editorial that highly criticized Californians for voting against most of the ballot propositions in a special election. After numerous negative comments were posted by readers, the editorial was taken off the website and replaced with a final version of the editorial. A message stated that the early version of the editorial was posted in error.[9]

Recognition

The Sacramento Bee has won six Pulitzer Prizes in its history. It has won numerous other awards, including many for its progressive public service campaigns promoting free speech (the Bee often criticized government policy, and uncovered many scandals hurting Californians), anti-racism (the Bee supported the Union during the American Civil War and publicly denounced the Ku Klux Klan), worker's rights (the Bee has a strong history of supporting unionization), and environmental protection (leading numerous tree-planting campaigns and fighting against environmental destruction in the Sierra Nevada).[10]

In 2003 the Council for Media Integrity from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP) gave the Candle in the Dark award to Edgar Sanchez for his column "Scam Alert" where he has written about Nigerian scams, car-mileage fraud and phony police detectives. The Council is made up of by scientists, media and academics, all concerned with the "balanced portrayal of science". The Candle in the Dark Award is presented to those who show "outstanding contributions to the public's understanding of science and scientific principles".[11][12]

Notable people

References

  1. ↑ "Executive Leadership". Sacramento Bee. 4 December 2006. Retrieved December 14, 2009.
  2. 1 2 "2007 Top 100 Daily Newspapers in the U.S. by Circulation" (PDF). BurrellesLuce. 31 March 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 4, 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-29.
  3. 1 2 3 4 History of The Sacramento Bee from the newspaper's website
  4. ↑ Profile of The Sacramento Bee from The McClatchy Company website
  5. ↑ Lessons from Scoopy Bee, from Etaoin Shrdlu, the blogspot-based blog for McClatchy editors
  6. ↑ Carolyn Thomas Foreman (September 1936). "Edward W. Bushyhead and John Rollin Ridge, Cherokee Editors in California". Chronicles of Oklahoma. Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved October 22, 2010.
  7. ↑ Richardson, Darcy G. Others: Third-Party Politics from the Nation's Founding to the Rise and Fall of the Greenback-Labor Party. iUniverse: 2004; p. 206.
  8. ↑ Katharine Q. Seelye and Andrew Ross Sorkin, "Newspaper Chain Agrees to a Sale for $4.5 Billion", The New York Times, March 13, 2006.
  9. ↑ Patrick Gleason, "Stay Classy Sacramento....Bee", Americans for Tax Reform, May 21, 2009.
  10. ↑ "Award-winning coverage that makes a difference". The Sacramento Bee. December 8, 2006. Retrieved April 5, 2011.
  11. ↑ Nisbet, Matt (1999). "Candle in the Dark and Snuffed Candle Awards". Skeptical Inquirer. 23 (2): 6.
  12. ↑ Frazier, Kendrick (2004). "From Internet Scams to Urban Legends, Planet (hoa)X to the Bible Code: CSICOP Albuquerque Conference Has Fun Exposing Hoaxes, Myths and Manias". Skeptical Inquirere. 28 (2): 7.
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