The Fresno Bee at 100: A century of service to the central San Joaquin Valley

Dear readers,

One hundred years ago this very day, a pioneering family that had created a news powerhouse in California’s capital city took its show 170 miles south and established The Fresno Bee.

This wasn’t a purchase of an existing publication. The McClatchys of Sacramento — of Gold Rush heritage and with ink in their veins as publishers of The Sacramento Bee — launched a completely new venture in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley’s fertile soil. It was done with an ironclad commitment to serve a burgeoning region of the nation’s equally burgeoning and soon-to-be most populous state.

Within a decade, the city’s other established newspapers were gone. Fresno would never be the same.

The Fresno Bee’s story mirrors the story of this great city over the last 100 years — and, indeed, that of the wider Valley we so dutifully serve.

We’ve documented triumphs and tragedies and have worked to make sense of what often is senseless. Most of all, we shine a bright light and ask questions.

Carlos McClatchy, the first editor of The Bee, set out the newspaper’s guiding principles in an editorial in the Oct. 17, 1922 edition: “The primary purpose of The Bee is to print the news; to tell it fairly, simply and impartially; unfairly to hurt none, no matter how lowly; to favor none, no matter how powerful.”

You can read Carlos’ editorial in its entirety here.

This journalism DNA lives on in the reporters, editors and visual journalists who work in The Bee newsroom. The news business has changed in ways that would have been incomprehensible a century ago. But The Bee continues and thrives as a trusted source for news and information. In an instant, we now can publish news that reaches all corners of the Valley and the world.

We’ve worked to preserve quality news reporting with philanthropy-backed initiatives and partnerships that include Education Lab and the Central Valley News Collaborative. Our fall fundraising campaign — which begins today — helps support this work. We welcome your contributions. Click here to donate.

On Sunday, we will publish a story by reporter Carmen Kohlruss highlighting key moments and big stories throughout The Bee’s history of writing the rough draft of your history.

Most of all, thanks for reading, subscribing, supporting, interacting, agreeing and disagreeing.

Here’s to 100 more years of telling your stories.

Joe Kieta

Executive Editor