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Marc Cooper is an American journalist, author, journalism professor and
blogger
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
. He is a
contributing editor
A contributing editor is a newspaper, magazine or online job title that varies in its responsibilities. Often, but not always, a contributing editor is a "high-end" freelancer, consultant, or expert who has proven ability and has readership dra ...
to ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
''. He wrote the popular "Dissonance" column for ''
LA Weekly'' from 2001 until November 2008. His writing has also appeared in such publications as the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'', ''
The Atlantic Monthly
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', ''
Harper's Magazine'', ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', ''
The Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
'', ''
Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...
'' and ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
''. His translated work has been published in various European and Latin American publications, including the French daily ''Liberation'' and the Mexico City-based dailies ''La Jornada'' and ''Uno Mas Uno''. He has also been a television producer for
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
, ''
CBS News'', and ''
The Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
''. His radio reports have aired on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
,
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...
and the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. During the 2008 presidential campaign he worked as editorial coordinator of ''The Huffington Post''s citizen-journalism project OffTheBus as well as a senior editor of the overall site.
Early life
Cooper was born in and grew up in Los Angeles. His career in journalism began in 1966 when he founded and edited an underground newspaper at
Fairfax High School in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. Cooper attended
San Fernando Valley State College in the 1960s and took part in several protests. In 1971, he was expelled from the
California State University
The California State University (Cal State or CSU) is a public university system in California. With 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers enrolling 485,550 students with 55,909 faculty and staff, CSU is the largest four-year public univers ...
system for his antiwar activism by order of
Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Ronald Reagan
In Chile
From 1971 to 1973, Cooper served as the Spanish-English translator for
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
an Socialist
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Salvador Allende
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...
. Following the
military coup
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
of 1973, he fled the country, fearing execution as a participant in the Allende government;
some of his American friends were executed by the military, including journalist
Charles Horman
Charles Edmund Lazar Horman (May 15, 1942 – September 19, 1973) was an American journalist and documentary filmmaker. He was executed in Chile in the days following the 1973 Chilean coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet, which overthr ...
. In 2002 he testified before a Chilean magistrate in the investigation of Horman's death.
Radio
From 1980 to 1983, Cooper was the news and public affairs director of
Pacifica station
KPFK-FM, Los Angeles. Between 1995 and 2005 he served as the principal host and executive producer of Radio Nation, a weekly syndicated one-hour production of
The Nation Institute
Type Media Center (formerly The Nation Institute) is a nonprofit media organization that was previously associated with ''The Nation'' magazine. It sponsors fellows, hosts forums, publishes books and investigative reporting, and awards several an ...
, featuring writers and editors from ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
'' magazine. Cooper anchored the program from its inception in 1995 until he relinquished the post in 2006. Between 1998 and 2001, he also hosted a daily KPFK talk show, ultimately resigning amid disagreements with a dissident group that gained control of the station's parent, the
Pacifica Foundation. At its peak, Radio Nation was heard on more than 100 public and community radio stations.
Journalism
In spring 2006, Cooper was appointed a full-time member of the journalism faculty at the
USC Annenberg School for Communication
The USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism comprises a School of Communication and a School of Journalism at the University of Southern California (USC). Starting July 2017, the school’s Dean is Willow Bay, succeeding Ernest J. ...
for the academic year 2006–2007. He had taught the previous five years as an adjunct. He was also promoted to the post of associate director at Annenberg's Institute for Justice and Journalism. In late 2008, Cooper was also named director of Annenberg Digital News and its online publication
Neon Tommy
''Neon Tommy'' was the online news publication sponsored by the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. It was active from 2009 to 2015.
Publication
Neon Tommy was a web-only student publicati ...
.
In 2010 he was promoted to Associate Professor of Professional Practice.
He also coordinates the USC Annenberg News21 fellowship which is part of a national Carnegie-Knight initiative for developing innovative journalism. His journalism prizes include awards from the
Society of Professional Journalists, the
Armstrong Memorial Foundation, the
Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman (March 23, 1887 – July 10, 1946) was an American labor leader. He was the head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor' ...
Foundation, the
California Associated Press TV and Radio Association, the
California Newspaper Publishers Association
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, the
Best in the West
Best or The Best may refer to:
People
* Best (surname), people with the surname Best
* Best (footballer, born 1968), retired Portuguese footballer
Companies and organizations
* Best & Co., an 1879–1971 clothing chain
* Best Lock Corporation ...
, Project Censored,
PEN American Center
PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922 and headquartered in New York City, is a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of liter ...
, and the
Greater Los Angeles Press Club.
He began his own daily blog in 2004. Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at ''
The Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
''. During the 2008 campaign he served as a senior editor of the site and also worked as editorial director of its OffTheBus citizen journalism reporting project. The same year he joined the advisory board of
Pajamas Media, a
weblog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
-related company. As of July 2007, Cooper is no longer affiliated with Pajamas Media. He left ''The Huffington Post'' in December 2008.
He is married to Chilean writer and teacher Patricia Vargas-Cooper and has one adult daughter,
Natasha Vargas-Cooper, who studied at
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
. She graduated in May 2007 and is now a writer and journalist. Her book ''Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through America of the 60's'' was published by Harper Collins in 2010.
Controversial views
Although Cooper espouses many traditional
leftist positions, he also criticizes some of his fellow leftists for what he says is a kneejerk and irrational tendency to support "unworthy" and marginal causes. He ruffled many ideological allies by his criticism of
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook; April 24, 1954) is an American political activist and journalist who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. While on death ...
, whom he famously dismissed as "a bad choice for poster-boy of the anti-death penalty movement." Cooper also disparaged
Ward Churchill
Ward LeRoy Churchill (born 1947) is an American author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado Boulder from 1990 until 2007. , calling him a "guaranteed loser" who was "an irrelevant and clearly deranged loner on the edge of the looniest left." Cooper was vocal in his opposition to the
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
and the subsequent occupation, but he has been scathingly critical of other leftist opponents to the war, such as Canadian journalist
Naomi Klein
Naomi A. Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses, support of ecofeminism, organized labour, left-wing politics and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism ...
, who he lambasted as a "friend" and "apologist" for prominent
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
i
Shiite
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most ...
Islamist Muqtada al-Sadr
Muqtada al-Sadr ( ar, مقتدى الصدر, Muqtadā aṣ-Ṣadr; born 4 August 1974) is an Iraqi politician and militia leader. He is the leader of the Sadrist Movement and the leader of the Peace Companies, a successor to the militia he had p ...
in response to a piece she wrote for the September 13, 2004 edition of ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
''.
Cooper has also been harshly critical of
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
n
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Hugo Chávez, whom he regards as a "thug," and very supportive of the
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
Orange Revolution
The Orange Revolution ( uk, Помаранчева революція, translit=Pomarancheva revoliutsiia) was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate afterm ...
in 2004.
Cooper has criticized the liberal position on
gun control, and has written that he is "tired of and deeply annoyed by affluent liberals--living in 6,000-square-foot houses with heated swimming pools, who use a 400-horsepower SUV to drive their kids two blocks to school, with a family carbon footprint that of a small battleship".
Over the past few years Cooper has sharply criticized the
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
n government for its crackdown on internal dissidents—some of whom have been handed stiff sentences for receiving funds and instructions from the United States. Cooper has helped write and circulate international letters of protest defending the locked-up dissidents.
He has described his current political position as "contrarian" and declares himself "agnostic" on grand ideological schemes.
Publications
Cooper has published three books: ''Roll Over Che Guevara: Travels of a Radical Reporter'' (1994), an anthology of his journalistic pieces; ''Pinochet and Me: A Chilean Anti Memoir'' (2001) which was an L.A. Times best-seller;
and ''The Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas'' (2004).
References
External links
Marc Cooper's Web site and blog(archive)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Marc
American alternative journalists
American broadcast news analysts
American radio journalists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American male journalists
Pacifica Foundation people
HuffPost writers and columnists
Fairfax High School (Los Angeles) alumni
20th-century American journalists
21st-century American journalists