Editor?s Note: This profile of the The Sacramento Bee's online operations is the debut of a new series on OJR examining the state of online news operations. Henceforth, each profile will be accompanied by database information about the operations, which will be regularly updated and searchable. Upcoming profiles include St. Petersburg Times Online and Berlingske Tidende.

Across the street from the towering Sacramento Bee, -- California?s capital city newspaper, is a compact, one-story outbuilding -- the headquarters for sacbee.com.

The Sacramento Bee's online operation, sacbee.com, is a classic repurposed-print news site with some important twists. Some print content has been enhanced with contextual audio and video, and collections of entertainment content, such as movie reviews and showtimes, have been aggregated to form a useful entertainment tool for users. New media manager, Ralph Frattura, says the site broke even in 2000,and made a 'substantial profit' in 2001, due largely to their successful online and bundled newspaper-online advertising revenue strategies.

The online operation -- with its 23 employees including two content-producing journalists and two content managers, five sales people and two techies also has its sights set on innovations for the future, including more multimedia, and building on their popular local entertainment sites, Sacramento.com and www.MovieClub.com.

'From the beginning, our chief goal has been twofold -- support the core business and build our own. We've built our operation by using existing strengths where possible -- the newsroom's journalists, the print sales operation's relationships and staff, corporate technical services -- and avoiding redundant expense and effort,' Frattura said.

Sacbee.com is a scrappy competitor against the local NBC-affiliated TV station?s Web site, KCRA-Channel 3, once a candidate for a partnership with sacbee.com until it affiliated with International Broadcasting Systems, a network of local broadcast news Web sites based in Minneapolis.

Breaking news is one of the most popular content areas on sacbee.com, and the biggest area of competition with Channel 3, says Bill Enfield, online editor for sacbee.com. When breaking news happens, the wheels of online and print collaboration are set in motion.

While content from the newspaper flows to the Web automatically with its parent McClatchy Nando Media?s technology, the breaking news process is guided by Enfield, a 17-year veteran Bee journalist who is the eyes and ears of the online staff in the print newsroom. Enfield develops relationships with print reporters and photographers to engender cooperation during breaking stories. Enfield says about 20 journalists in the print newsroom are 'really aggressive' contributors to the news Web site, and Enfield works hard to encourage more. 'I do a lot of missionary work, like thanking them for helping me,' he said.

'Since we use print reporters for 99.9 percent of our online stories during the day, any story we break is because of them. They are the heart of our daily online news operation. Consequently, I often appeal to their competitive spirit. It works rather well. Many reporters seem to take delight in beating TV and radio on breaking stories after years or decades of having to wait for our next print publication cycle,' Enfield said.

Breaking stories about crime and sports tend to pull in the most traffic and get play on local TV and radio stations. Enfield says sacbee.com was first to post breaking stories about a star basketball player Chris Webber, who announced he?ll play again for the Sacramento Kings in July, and about Ukranian Nikolay Soltys who allegedly stabbed to death six relatives in the city in August. Enfield credits the relationship between himself and the basketball writer, the police reporter and other print journalists, as an invaluable tool to get and publish solid breaking stories first, before KCRA. 'It?s been a hot competition (with KCRA),' Enfield said.

Enfield works with the reporter on deadline, writing copy while the reporter is verifying facts, and works toward posting the story as soon as possible when the reporter can fill in the blanks of the dummy story. 'Our sports writer told me (Webber) was going to play. After the reporter got word (about Webber), we had a story online within an hour,' he said.

'We broke the story, and everyone in radio and TV credited us with it,' Enfield said. 'We broke the story at about 5 p.m. on July 19. Between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. we owned the story. His agent finally confirmed our story to other media shortly after 7 p.m. We were getting credit from Sacramento to ESPN.com in New York. Traffic to our site was so heavy, we had to dedicate a second server to the Webber story.'

In mid-January, sacbee.com broke a national story online -- the arrest of three former Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) members who were accused in a 1975 slaying of a bank customer in a Sacramento suburb. The story was posted about 10 a.m. Pacific Time, as soon as the arrests were confirmed. 'We beat our TV competition by a good hour and a half. I think it took them that long to confirm the story. In the meantime, AP, the major local radio station, SFGate.com, CNN and others were using our story,' Enfield said.

Chris Christman, managing editor for thekcrachannel.com, agrees that competition is hot between sacbee.com and Channel 3 online, but credits his own staff with teamwork and video expertise for their own breaking news success stories. While the Soltys story was hot with KCRA?s audience, sports stories are generally not.

'I didn?t have time to flip over to them to see who was first (on the Soltys story). From the time we were first aware of the Soltys story, it was probably 45 minutes to get a TV crew out there and get info on the site,' Christman said. 'Then we monitored the story continuously for the rest of the day and added more elements as we went along, including video, maps and graphics, and kept on building on it.'

Video and audio on sacbee.com is a competitive weakness against Channel 3, but Frattura says they have purchased video camera equipment and have been experimenting with the cameras at breaking news and popular community events. The staff is dabbling in creating video and audio clips for the site, and is prepared to spike them if they are not of good quality. 'We?re novices at it, we?ve only done it a half a dozen times,' said Linda Ash, sacbee.com online news manager, in November. Popular video clips have included an interview with the local sheriff about the Soltys murder case. Well-trafficked audio file downloads include Q&As at Sacramento Kings basketball press conferences.

'There are real issues to doing real multimedia work?video and audio. I frankly question that (because) our roots are in print. We have no natural advantage,' Frattura said. 'It would be a huge expense to be a credible video player.' He said they are looking at possible partnerships with news broadcast sites as broadband access and content become more popular.

Meanwhile, sacbee.com Enfield?s journalistic instincts kick in when stories break and facts are not yet verified. In mid-2001, after the six brutal murders allegedly at the hands of Soltys, another fatal stabbing was reported in Sacramento. Competitors named Soltys, who hadn?t been captured, as the suspect. 'We didn?t report it. We didn?t have the facts. It turned out it wasn?t Soltys. We were proud not to report that. That?s a test of a good operation. To hold off on a story if you don?t have it right yet.'

'Channel 3 is a worthy competitor, but they are willing to put up information that is less complete than we would. We are willing to pass on some (stories),' Enfield said.

Beyond breaking news, entertainment information has become a hit in the Sacramento market.

The Bee?s three Web sites are sacbee.com, launched in 1996; www.sacramento.com, the region?s entertainment guide launched in 1999; and movieclub.com, launched in 1997.

MovieClub is a members-only site that offers local movie schedules, discounts, reviews, maps, celebrity profiles and contests for free movie tickets for members. Members can get advanced screening tickets for movies in exchange for registration.

'The MovieClub is one of the most popular things on our site,' Enfield said. Indeed, more than 20,000 members are active, adds Frattura. The site has been such a success, they are launching TheaterClub.com in 2002, promoting local theater and offering dress rehearsal tickets to members.

On the horizon for sacbee.com is to use the database of users collected from MovieClub.com and integrate the database with efforts to sell more targeted and lucrative advertising based on information collected with the permission of the MovieClub and TheaterClub members.

'While we rely on our newsroom for news creation -- capital 'j' journalism -- we have enhanced the content edges in new media with additional information, audio, a dab of experimental video and by turning content collections into things like the Movie Club (movieclub.com). It has a piece of what every new media operation seeks -- good content, good looks, page views, promotional power, data capture and revenue. We've also supported the company's journalistic heritage by working with local nonprofit and arts groups, helping them find a place on the Web. The Movie Club concept is now being extended into the local theater community, to its benefit and ours,' Frattura said.