![\"Peter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DG-PETER-SCHRAG.jpg\" "\\"Peter")
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Peter Schrag in 1997, when he was writing editorial columns for The Sacramento Bee.<\/p>\n
Sacramento Bee file<\/p>\n
Peter Schrag, a former editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee who died at age 94 on March 19 in Davis, was one of the intellectual giants in the history of California journalism. Yet pigeonholing Schrag to this city and state doesn\u2019t begin to capture the many dimensions of an extraordinary life that began as a child refugee fleeing Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n
Schrag was The Bee\u2019s thought leader from 1977 to 1996. I was the first hire onto The Bee\u2019s editorial board in 1997 after his departure. Schrag\u2019s presence still loomed large. He couldn\u2019t resist returning to the newsroom for a meeting with some dignitary \u2014 leaning back in a conference room chair, hands behind his head, unless his gray beard needed a scratch.<\/p>\n
Possessing a stunning breadth of knowledge, Schrag couldn\u2019t help but be intimidating, with seemingly no subject left unresearched. Yet above all, he was always so downright nice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will forever remember him telling me to \u2018turn it over one more time,\u2019\u201d recalls one of his last Bee hires, Susanna Cooper. What did he mean by that? \u201cBe both more analytical in your thinking and precise with your words,\u201d said Cooper, who became and remains a respected voice in California education policy. \u201cThis mantra will be with me always, as will his kindness and humor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peter Ludwig Schrag\u2019s ascent in California journalism came about by opportunity rather than design. Born in Germany in 1931, Schrag grew up on the East Coast. A graduate of Amherst College, Schrag\u2019s first job out of college was reporting at the El Paso Herald-Post. He returned to Amherst two years later, working in communications and spending time frequently in New York. There he became a fixture in the New York publishing world, freelancing for the likes of Harper\u2019s and Saturday Review, where he became a contributing editor.<\/p>\n
He temporarily resided in Los Angeles in 1973 to cover the trial of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst charged by federal attorneys of the Richard Nixon administration with espionage and conspiracy for leaking documents detailing the failed Vietnam War. The documents were known as the Pentagon Papers. The case against Ellsberg, ultimately dismissed, became the subject of one of Schrag\u2019s multiple books.<\/p>\n
Four years later, a longtime friend, Frank McCulloch, had become a top editor at The Sacramento Bee, owned by the McClatchy family. McCulloch suggested that Schrag meet with the family\u2019s patriarch of that generation, a man known simply by his initials \u2014 C.K.<\/p>\n
C.K. McClatchy was looking for someone to lead opinion writing. \u201cI\u2019d never thought about editing an editorial page,\u201d Schrag, more accustomed to long-form writing, recalled in his memoirs. \u201cSo I wasn\u2019t sure I could do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In search of minds with \u2018policy chops\u2019<\/p>\n
What an understatement. Schrag did not assemble some traditional editorial board of journalists attempting to occasionally ponder the news. Instead, he created the equivalent of a post-doctorate program to study California, the United States and the world.<\/p>\n
Rather than produce term papers, this team produced daily analyses to share with readers. \u201cHe hired people with policy chops,\u201d said one of his great recruits, Mark Paul, who rose to become his top deputy. Other scholar\/writers included Rhea Wilson, Robert Mott, John Jacobs, Ginger Rutland and Bill Kahrl.<\/p>\n
Schrag started when the Bee still arrived on Sacramento doorsteps in the afternoon. The static news cycle gave Schrag\u2019s editorial board a rhythm that continued long after I arrived.<\/p>\n
On the third floor of the now-demolished brick building at 2100 Q Street, editorial board members in their offices would finish and distribute drafts by 10 a.m. The meeting in the boardroom, lined with historical Sacramento photos, began at 10:30. Discussions could become tense, even heated, before landing on the consensus opinion. Mott in particular was savage about bad writing.<\/p>\n
After retreating to our offices to polish our drafts for editing, the board in unison would head to the third-floor cafeteria for lunch. Newsroom reporters would look at us like some wayward herd.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a wonderful, collegial situation,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n
The pace was \u201cshockingly difficult,\u201d said Rutland. Schrag \u201cmade me smarter.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of pure writing prowess, nobody could keep up with Schrag. \u201cHe was there before everybody,\u201d Paul said. \u201cHe was writing four days a week,\u201d an astounding level of production for a scribe, an editor and an office manager. \u201cPlus a weekly column.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schrag could barely suffer the sleepy and parochial politics of Sacramento, gravitating to the debates inside the Capitol. He loathed California\u2019s initiative process, fueled by money and narrow influences. His book, \u201cParadise Lost: California\u2019s Experience, America\u2019s Future,\u201d made The New York Times\u2019 notable book list. His passing was worthy of a Times obituary,<\/a> a rarity for a Sacramentan.<\/p>\n \u201cHe brought both a journalist\u2019s skepticism and a refugee\u2019s gratitude to his work,\u201d remembers his son, David. His father was \u201calways striving to understand and improve the society he had come to call his own.\u201d<\/p>\n His son remembers how Schrag could write about anything, from his usual diet of weighty policy matters to \u201chigh school football in Chico, to Willie Mays turning 40 or the first black football player in the Southeastern Conference.\u201d But his passion was undoubtedly education and the betterment of California\u2019s children. Cooper, a fellow Amherst graduate, gravitated toward the same subject; Schrag loved California \u201cfor all its promise, shortcomings and complexity,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n Schrag is survived by his wife, Patricia Ternehan, and his children, Mitzi, Erin, David, Ben and Sky. His life will be honored at a private memorial service.<\/p>\n Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n
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