Marc Cooper
Encyclopedia
Marc Cooper is an American
journalist
, author
, journalism professor and blogger. He is currently a contributing editor
to The Nation
. 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 Atlantic Monthly
, Harper's Magazine
, The New Yorker
, The Christian Science Monitor, Playboy
and Rolling Stone
. 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
, CBS
News, and The Christian Science Monitor. His radio reports have aired on NBC
, CBC
and the BBC
. 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.
. His career in journalism
began in 1966 when he founded and edited an underground newspaper at Fairfax High School
in West Hollywood, California
. In 1971, he was expelled from the California State University
system for his antiwar activism by order of Governor Ronald Reagan
.
-English
translator for Chile
an Socialist,Marxist, Leninist
president Salvador Allende
. Following the military coup
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
. In 2002 he testified before a Chilean magistrate in the investigation of Horman's death.
station KPFK
-FM, Los Angeles. He later served as the principal host of the one-hour weekly program, "Radio Nation", a production of The Nation Institute which featured the writers and editors of The Nation
magazine. Cooper anchored the program from its inception in 1995 until he relinquished the post in 2006. He also hosted a daily talk show
on KPFK between 1998 and 2001, which he quit amid disagreements with the dissident group which gained control of the station's parent Pacifica Foundation. Between 1995 and 2005 he served as host and executive producer of Radio Nation, the weekly syndicated radio show affiliated with The Nation magazine. At its peak, Radio Nation was heard on more than 100 public and community radio stations.
.
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
Foundation, the California Associated Press TV and Radio Association, the California Newspaper Publishers Association
, the Best in the West, Project Censored
, PEN American Center
, and the Greater Los Angeles Press Club.
He began his own daily blog in 2004. Since May 2005 he's also been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post
. 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-related company. As of July, 2007, Cooper is no longer affilitated 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. 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.
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
, whom he famously dismissed as "a bad choice for poster-boy of the anti-death penalty movement." Cooper also disparaged Ward Churchill
, 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
and the subsequent occupation, but he has been scathingly critical of other leftist opponents to the war, such as Canadian
journalist Naomi Klein
, who he lambasted as a "friend" and "apologist" for prominent Iraq
i Shiite
Islamist
Muqtada al-Sadr
in response to a piece she wrote for the September 13, 2004 edition of The Nation
.
Cooper has also been harshly critical of Venezuela
n president Hugo Chávez
, whom he regards as a "thug," and very supportive of the Ukrainian
Orange Revolution
, the latter of which some viewed as an attempt by the U.S. to manipulate the country into the Western sphere of influence
.
Over the past few years Cooper has sharply criticized the Cuba
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.
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).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, journalism professor and blogger. He is currently a contributing editor
Contributing editor
A contributing editor is a magazine job title that varies in responsibilities. Most often, a contributing editor is a freelancer who has proven ability and readership draw. The contributing editor regularly contributes articles to the publication but does not actually edit articles, and the title...
to The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
. He wrote the popular "Dissonance" column for LA Weekly
LA Weekly
LA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
from 2001 until November 2008. His writing has also appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, The Christian Science Monitor, Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
. 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
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
News, and The Christian Science Monitor. His radio reports have aired on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
and the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. 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 AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. His career in journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
began in 1966 when he founded and edited an underground newspaper at Fairfax High School
Fairfax High School (Los Angeles)
Fairfax High School is a Los Angeles Unified School District high school located in Los Angeles, USA, near the border of West Hollywood in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles...
in West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, a city of Los Angeles County, California, was incorporated on November 29, 1984, with a population of 34,399 at the 2010 census. 41% of the city's population is made up of gay men according to a 2002 demographic analysis by Sara Kocher Consulting for the City of West Hollywood...
. In 1971, he was expelled from the California State University
California State University
The California State University is a public university system in the state of California. It is one of three public higher education systems in the state, the other two being the University of California system and the California Community College system. It is incorporated as The Trustees of the...
system for his antiwar activism by order of Governor Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
.
In Chile
From 1971 to 1973, Cooper served as the SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
-English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translator for Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an Socialist,Marxist, Leninist
Socialist Party of Chile
The Socialist Party of Chile is a political party, that is part of the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy coalition. Its historical leader was the late President of Chile Salvador Allende Gossens, who was deposed by General Pinochet in 1973...
president Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
. Following the military coup
Chilean coup of 1973
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a watershed event of the Cold War and the history of Chile. Following an extended period of political unrest between the conservative-dominated Congress of Chile and the socialist-leaning President Salvador Allende, discontent culminated in the latter's downfall in...
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 Horman
Charles Horman was an American journalist and was one of the victims of the 1973 Chilean coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet, that deposed the socialist president, Salvador Allende, after bombing the Chilean presidential palace on September 11, 1973...
. 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 PacificaPacifica Radio
Pacifica Radio is the oldest public radio network in the United States. It is a group of five independently operated, non-commercial, listener-supported radio stations that is known for its progressive/liberal political orientation. It is also a program service supplying over 100 affiliated...
station KPFK
KPFK
KPFK is a listener-sponsored radio station based in North Hollywood, California, United States, which serves the Greater Los Angeles Area, and also streams 24 hours a day via the Internet...
-FM, Los Angeles. He later served as the principal host of the one-hour weekly program, "Radio Nation", a production of The Nation Institute which featured the writers and editors of The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
magazine. Cooper anchored the program from its inception in 1995 until he relinquished the post in 2006. He also hosted a daily talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
on KPFK between 1998 and 2001, which he quit amid disagreements with the dissident group which gained control of the station's parent Pacifica Foundation. Between 1995 and 2005 he served as host and executive producer of Radio Nation, the weekly syndicated radio show affiliated with The Nation magazine. At its peak, Radio Nation was heard on more than 100 public and community radio stations.
Journalism
In the spring 2006, Cooper was appointed a full time member of the journalism faculty at the USC Annenberg School for Communication 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 TommyNeon Tommy
Neon Tommy is the 24/7, multimedia online news publication sponsored by the Anennberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California.-Publication:Neon Tommy is a web-only student publication...
.
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
Society of Professional Journalists
The Society of Professional Journalists , formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is one of the oldest organizations representing journalists in the United States. It was established in April 1909 at DePauw University, and its charter was designed by William Meharry Glenn. The ten founding members of...
, the Armstrong Memorial Foundation, the Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman was an American labor leader. Head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, he was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor's support for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Party.-Early years:Sidney Hillman was...
Foundation, the California Associated Press TV and Radio Association, the California Newspaper Publishers Association
California Newspaper Publishers Association
The California Newspaper Publishers Association is a nonprofit trade association founded in 1888 that represents the daily and weekly newspapers of California. Its diverse membership consists of over 500 newspapers that elect 35 individuals to its governing board of directors...
, the Best in the West, Project Censored
Project Censored
Project Censored is a non-profit, media criticism and investigative journalism project within the Sonoma State University Foundation. It is managed through the School of Social Sciences at the university....
, PEN American Center
PEN American Center
PEN American Center , founded in 1922 and based in New York City, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. The Center has a membership of 3,300 writers, editors, and translators...
, and the Greater Los Angeles Press Club.
He began his own daily blog in 2004. Since May 2005 he's also been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
. 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
Pajamas Media
PJ Media is a media company that uses the Internet to present and comment on the news.Founded in 2004 by a network primarily, but not exclusively, made up of conservatives and libertarians led by mystery writer, screenwriter, and blogger Roger L...
, a weblog-related company. As of July, 2007, Cooper is no longer affilitated 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. 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 leftistLeft-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
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
Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. He has been described as "perhaps the world's best known death-row inmate", and his sentence is one of the most debated today...
, whom he famously dismissed as "a bad choice for poster-boy of the anti-death penalty movement." Cooper also disparaged Ward Churchill
Ward Churchill
Ward LeRoy Churchill is an author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1990 to 2007. The primary focus of his work is on the historical treatment of political dissenters and Native Americans by the United States government...
, 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
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
and the subsequent occupation, but he has been scathingly critical of other leftist opponents to the war, such as Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
journalist Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization.-Family:...
, who he lambasted as a "friend" and "apologist" for prominent Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
i Shiite
Shi'a Islam
Shia Islam is the second largest denomination of Islam. The followers of Shia Islam are called Shi'ites or Shias. "Shia" is the short form of the historic phrase Shīʻatu ʻAlī , meaning "followers of Ali", "faction of Ali", or "party of Ali".Like other schools of thought in Islam, Shia Islam is...
Islamist
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
Muqtada al-Sadr
Muqtada al-Sadr
Sayyid Muqtadā al-Ṣadr is an Iraqi Islamic political leader.Along with Ali al-Sistani and Ammar al-Hakim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Sadr is one of the most influential religious and political figures in the country not holding any official title in the Iraqi government.-Titles:He is...
in response to a piece she wrote for the September 13, 2004 edition of The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
.
Cooper has also been harshly critical of Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
n president Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...
, whom he regards as a "thug," and very supportive of the Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
Orange Revolution
Orange Revolution
The Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter...
, the latter of which some viewed as an attempt by the U.S. to manipulate the country into the Western sphere of influence
Sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or conceptual division over which a state or organization has significant cultural, economic, military or political influence....
.
Over the past few years Cooper has sharply criticized the Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
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.
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).
External links
- Marc Cooper's Web site and blog
- Biography at The Nation
- Cooper on U.S. Border hypocrisy
- Cooper on Cuban Dissidents
- "Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Churchill - More Liberal Trashing of Ward Churchill", by Joshua Frank, Counterpunch, February 7, 2005
- "Marc Cooper's McCarthy-Era Attack on Naomi Klein", by Al GiordanoAl GiordanoAl Giordano is a journalist who operates the Narco News Bulletin, reporting on the War on Drugs, the political blog The Field, reporting on American politics, and the School of Authentic Journalism...
, Big Left Outside, August 29, 2004 - "Marc Cooper's 'Progressive' Rhetoric", by Gilles d'Aymery, Swans Commentary, February 13, 2006