ROAD TO RECOVERY: The Series

Introduction

Melanie Sill Executive Editor The Sacramento Bee

In a series of special reports, The Sacramento Bee and Capital Public Radio will explore possibilities for economic rebuilding in the Sacramento region. This series, "Road to Recovery," comes as economists report that California and our region lag behind the nation in climbing out of the Great Recession. Despite that reality, or perhaps because of it, we wanted to look beyond the downturn's impact to understand what forces and trends might produce jobs and economic growth.

The series will be the most extensive collaborative reporting effort yet for The Bee and public radio, an opportunity to draw readers and listeners all across the region into issues that affect everyone.

Although we're working together, you won't hear the same stories on the radio that you read in The Bee. We've agreed on topics and themes, but each newsroom will draw on its specific strengths: words and visuals for The Bee, audio reporting for CPR, and Web linking for both.

The Bee series kicks off next Sunday and Monday; the first Capital Public Radio segment will air Monday, Jan. 18, during "Morning Edition." Other segments will air in the same time slot.

From there, CPR and The Bee will coordinate the timing and story topics for parts of the series, and we'll promote and link online to each other's "Road to Recovery" reports. But our approaches will differ.

Capital Public Radio, for instance, will check back throughout the year to see how individual people in key job sectors are faring, said Joe Barr, news director.

"We want the series to give listeners insight into the daily lives of people impacted by the recession and what they're doing to recover," Barr said in an e-mail. "Through these individuals, we're also hoping to get a sense of how the regional economy is doing over the course of the year."

The Bee will dig into trends and job sectors to tell readers where industry bets are being made and where caution lies about new businesses and the bedrock industries of the region, real estate and government among the biggest of them.

"The series will look at promising new efforts in clean technology, health care and other industries and whether they have the potential to create the kind of jobs that will make them a force in the economy," said Mary Lynne Vellinga, Bee business editor.

We'll report on what is happening but also on what might be missing and on the reality behind some of the talk about economic prospects.

The Bee and Capital Public Radio have worked together before in various ways. In 2009, we teamed up on a series of "Second Opinions" community public forums, for instance.

Bee reporters and editors have been frequent guests on CPR programs, as they have on other local talk radio and television programs.

We think the collaboration will increase the reach of this work and offer opportunities for more public input. You'll find Web links and collected stories at www.sacbee.com and at www.capradio.org once the series launches.

In another first, The Bee has produced a special edition featuring front pages that reflect the biggest stories of 2009. The "2009" edition runs 64 pages, in four sections and was printed on a higher grade of paper than the daily Bee.

From my view, it's a reminder that newspaper front pages, and some of the other pages featured in the book, still capture moments of history in a unique way.