Foon Rhee

Foon Rhee was CalMatters deputy managing editor, working with reporters who cover politics and also edited our WhatMatters daily newsletter. He oversaw coverage of the Legislature, the state Capitol and elections, including our award-winning Voter Guide. His goals were to help voters make informed choices, to explain how state government works, or doesn’t work, and to hold public officials accountable.  

During his four-decade career, Foon has focused on local and state government and political campaigns. He covered City Hall and the North Carolina legislature for The Charlotte Observer. He then became a local and political editor at The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. At the Boston Globe, he was city editor and then deputy national political editor for the 2008 presidential campaign and for President Obama’s first year in office. 

In 2010, Foon came to California as an editorial writer and columnist at The Sacramento Bee, where he focused on City Hall and veterans’ issues and did dozens of endorsement interviews with local and state candidates and ballot measure supporters and opponents. In late 2018, he became editor at the Sacramento News & Review before joining CalMatters in March 2021. He’s a graduate of Duke University (and diehard Duke basketball fan), and was a Freedom Forum fellow in Asian studies at the University of Hawaii and Poynter Institute ethics fellow.