Mort Saltzman, a longtime Bee editor with a drive for the big story, dies at age of 82

Mort Saltzman spent years barking instructions at reporters and his fellow editors in The Sacramento Bee’s newsroom. He was just as comfortable, in retirement, taking orders from them as a barista in the paper’s cafeteria.

A baseball fan, coffee junkie — and a witty, tough-minded editor with an instinct for breaking news — Saltzman died Wednesday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. The Davis resident was 82.

Saltzman spent more than 40 years in journalism, mainly as an editor overseeing reporters and other newsroom staffers at The Bee and, before that, the now-defunct Sacramento Union. For years he played a major role in selecting the stories that would appear on The Bee’s front page and wasn’t shy about nudging reporters to dig harder for news.

“He loved the big stories,” said Gregory Favre, a retired Bee executive editor. “He was a cherished colleague.”

“The epitome of a good newsman,” said retired Bee reporter Nancy Teichert, a close friend.

A Minnesota native born Feb. 8, 1940, Saltzman attended UCLA and became editor of the student newspaper, the Daily Bruin. It was at the Bruin that he became embroiled in controversy (a newspaper cliché that he surely would have edited out of this obituary).

Days before the 1960 election, the head of the Los Angeles County Republican party sent telegrams to university officials and the Board of Regents, accusing the paper of using “smear tactics” in its coverage of the GOP presidential nominee, Vice President Richard Nixon.

The flap didn’t seem to derail his career. Saltzman’s fledgling journalism career took him to Eureka, where he worked in broadcast news, and Reno, where he reported for the Associated Press.

He landed in Sacramento in the 1970s, where Mort joined the staff of the Union. His employer was a newspaper that was often the underdog in the Sacramento media scene, struggling to keep up with the larger and wealthier Bee.

Saltzman naturally took particular glee when the Union trounced The Bee on a major story.

“He loved kicking The Bee’s butt,” said Stephen Magagnini, a colleague of Saltzman’s at both papers.

As the Union faded, Saltzman jumped to The Bee in 1979. Over the years he moved up the ladder, eventually becoming executive news editor and deputy managing editor, giving him a wide range of responsibilities at The Bee’s former newsroom at 21st and Q streets.

“He was always ready to challenge a reporter on any story,” Magagnini said. “If you could explain yourself and stand your ground, you had no bigger champion.”

In April 1995, the night an explosion tore through the offices of the California Forestry Association in downtown Sacramento, killing a the association’s president, Saltzman got to live out every newspaper editor’s dream. Late at night, while the presses were already rolling, The Bee’s reporters learned that the explosion was the work of the man known as the Unabomber.

“Mort yelled, ‘Stop the presses!’” said Joyce Terhaar, who was the paper’s city editor then. The late edition of the next day’s paper carried the banner headline, “Unabomber kills again.”

Saltzman’s passion for the big story was never more evident than Sept. 11, 2001. Online journalism was still relatively new. Saltzman knew that coverage of the terror attacks couldn’t wait until the next day’s paper. So he oversaw production of an “extra” printed edition that was sold on the streets of Sacramento hours after twin towers fell in New York, according to longtime Bee reporter Sam Stanton.

Saltzman retired from the paper in 2008 but was far from through. The Bee was negotiating with Old Soul Co., the Sacramento coffee shop chain, about opening an outlet in the paper’s cafeteria when Saltzman entered the picture.

The retired editor sent a handwritten letter to Old Soul’s owners asking for a job, explaining that he’d always been interested in working in the coffee business.

“That was sort of his audition, his resume,” said Old Soul co-owner Tim Jordan.

Old Soul hired him to run The Bee’s new coffee shop — which he did with typical enthusiasm, serving up lattes and mochas to his former colleagues.

“Just an unbelievably charming, insightful, empathetic, witty guy,” Jordan said.

Even as Old Soul stopped serving coffee at The Bee, it kept Saltzman on the payroll. He became Old Soul’s catering manager and held other duties before retiring during the early months of the pandemic in 2020.

Even so, he stayed active.

“For a while he was a census taker,” Teichert said. “And then I started getting calls from him wanting to go to lunch. I realized he was bored.”

Survivors include his second wife, Wendy Watson, and their son, Eric.

Plans for a memorial service are pending.