Peter Z. Scheer, Managing Editor

Zuade Kaufman / Truthdig

Peter Scheer grew up in the newspaper business, spending family vacations with his mother at newspaper editors’ conferences, enjoying daycare in editorial departments and begrudgingly reviewing his father’s columns on the way to school. Tagging along with his father on an expedition to Southeast Asia for Microsoft’s (now defunct) MungoPark.com, Peter found himself in the middle of a spontaneous Cambodian coup, alone and surrounded by armed teenagers. It was at that moment that he re-evaluated his parents’ chosen profession and wondered whether the family business was a sensible career path.

Having survived the incident, as well as a later encounter with giant bird-eating spiders, Peter went on to major in communication at the University of Southern California. During a study abroad trip to Hong Kong, Peter found himself in the middle of the SARS epidemic, and, recalling armed Cambodians, wondered why his travel luck was so consistently poor. Having survived the SARS epidemic, Peter returned to USC, where he continued to delay choosing a career. After graduation, he quickly entered the movie business. After a couple of years of long hours and “colorful” personalities, the armed Cambodians didn’t seem so bad, and he stopped refusing his father’s invitation to work part-time for Truthdig. He is now the Managing Editor.