We in the newspaper business make our living communicating, but when it comes to explaining ourselves, we have long fallen short.

Traditionally, we haven't exactly invited questions. Most of us were trained not to become part of the story, and we'd rather write about anything but ourselves.

So it's no surprise that misconceptions abound about what we do and why we do it.

At The Bee, we are trying to be more accessible. We print reporters' e-mail addresses and telephone numbers at the end of their stories, and we publish key telephone numbers on page A2 every day. We invite readers to attend our daily news meetings.

Starting tomorrow, we're going to take it a step further.

If you have a question for a Bee editor, you can ask it on our Web site and we'll try to answer it. Just go to http://www.fresnobeehive.com/asktheeditors and type your question.

To get everybody in the mood, here's a sample of what you might find. The first is my answer to a question I'm frequently asked, and the rest are from other Bee editors.

Q: Shouldn't The Bee present Fresno in a more positive light?

A: It's not our role to be public relations agents for Fresno or anything else. We are responsible for reporting facts. I like what City Council President Jerry Duncan said recently when he voted against contracting with a marketing firm to polish Fresno's image: "Do good things and people will think good things of you."

The fact is, problems usually need to be aired out before things get better. The Bee's reporting on the Valley's poor air quality has prodded people in power to start doing something about it. We have a new juvenile hall in place of the old dungeon-like "Hall of Shame" because The Bee made it impossible to ignore the conditions children were incarcerated in. On a holiday note, when we reported that turkeys were scarce at agencies that feed the poor, donations poured in just in time for thousands to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.

Ignoring problems doesn't give us a better image. Addressing them does.

At the same time, to truly be a mirror of our community, we also need to tell about the hard work, achievements and celebrations of its residents. That's why in recent editions we've written about the firefighters of Fresno's Station 3, a young woman from Fresno who was named a Rhodes scholar and Fresnans who provide wheat seeds to Armenia, just to name a few.

Q: Why did The Bee eliminate the stock indicators from the front page of the Business section?

A: Recently Bee editors and designers made changes to the Business cover to make more room for photos and illustrations. One change was to remove the stock indicators -- the red and green arrows -- to allow for a less stilted, or pre-planned, layout. We reasoned that since the same information is listed daily at the top of Page C4, it wouldn't be missed on Page C1.

We were wrong about our readers' reaction.

In hindsight, we could have better prepared our readers for the change and better informed them where to find the information they have come to appreciate.

At the same time, we could have done a better job of letting our readers know what they will get in exchange: Better organized and more visually compelling pages that we hope will continue to appeal to long-time readers, as well as draw new readers to the interesting and relevant stories we have in the Business section.

-- Kris Eldred, assistant managing editor

Q: Why does The Bee's sports section favor (insert your school's rival here)?

A: This question is often prefaced by the statement, "You must have graduated from ..."

The Bee's coverage tends to skew toward what interests fans/readers most. Thus, big headlines tend to be about winning teams.

But The Bee takes great pride in diverse, comprehensive coverage of the Valley's schools. And we are always looking for compelling stories, the kind that transcend winning and losing. For example, Nick Giannandrea's story about the return of football to Alpaugh High School made the front page of the paper.

Oh, and while everyone in Bee Sports takes great pride in having graduated from somewhere, we take even more pride in telling the story at hand -- no matter the winner.

-- John Rich, assistant managing editor

Other questions? We're looking forward to reading them at fresnobee.com. Or contact me at the number or address below. Betsy Lumbye is executive editor and senior vice president of The Bee. She can be reached at blumbye@fresnobee.com or (559)441-6207.