Marc Cooper | |
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 Marc Cooper during a conference in Santiago, Chile, 2010 | |
| Born | Los Angeles,California, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Fairfax High School San Fernando Valley State College |
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| Spouse | Patricia Vargas-Cooper |
| Children | Natasha Vargas-Cooper |
Marc Cooper is an American journalist, author, journalism professor andblogger. He is acontributing editor toThe Nation. He wrote the popular "Dissonance" column forLA Weekly from 2001 until November 2008. His writing has also appeared in such publications as theLos Angeles Times,The Atlantic Monthly,Harper's Magazine,The New Yorker,The Christian Science Monitor,Playboy andRolling Stone.
His translated work has been published in various European and Latin American publications, including the French dailyLiberation and the Mexico City-based dailiesLa Jornada andUno Mas Uno. He has also been a television producer forPBS,CBS News, andThe Christian Science Monitor. His radio reports have aired onNBC,Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and theBBC. During the 2008 presidential campaign he worked as editorial coordinator ofThe Huffington Post's citizen-journalism project OffTheBus as well as a senior editor of the overall site.
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 atFairfax High School inLos Angeles, California. Cooper attendedSan Fernando Valley State College in the 1960s and took part in several protests.[1] In 1971, he was expelled from theCalifornia State University system for his antiwar activism by order ofGovernorRonald Reagan.[2]
From 1971 to 1973, Cooper served as the Spanish-English translator forChilean SocialistpresidentSalvador Allende. Following themilitary coup of 1973, he fled the country, fearing execution as a participant in the Allende government;[3] some of his American friends were executed by the military, including journalistCharles Horman. In 2002 he testified before a Chilean magistrate in the investigation of Horman's death.
In spring 2006, Cooper was appointed a full-time member of the journalism faculty at theUSC 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.[4] In late 2008, Cooper was also named director of Annenberg Digital News and its online publicationNeon Tommy.
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 theSociety of Professional Journalists, theArmstrong Memorial Foundation, theSidney Hillman Foundation, theCalifornia Associated Press TV and Radio Association, theCalifornia Newspaper Publishers Association, theBest in the West, Project Censored,PEN American Center, and theGreater Los Angeles Press Club.
He began his own daily blog in 2004. Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger atThe 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 ofPajamas Media, aweblog-related company. As of July 2007, Cooper is no longer affiliated with Pajamas Media. He leftThe 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 atUCLA. She graduated in May 2007 and is now a writer and journalist. Her bookMad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through America of the 60's was published by Harper Collins in 2010.[citation needed]
Although Cooper espouses many traditionalleftist 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 ofMumia Abu-Jamal, whom he famously dismissed as "a bad choice for poster-boy of the anti-death penalty movement."[5] Cooper also disparagedWard Churchill, calling him a "guaranteed loser" who was "an irrelevant and clearly deranged loner on the edge of the looniest left."[6] Cooper was vocal in his opposition to the2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation, but he has been scathingly critical of other leftist opponents to the war, such as Canadian journalistNaomi Klein, who he lambasted as a "friend" and "apologist" for prominentIraqiShiiteIslamistMuqtada al-Sadr in response to a piece she wrote for the September 13, 2004 edition ofThe Nation.
Cooper has also been harshly critical ofVenezuelanpresidentHugo Chávez, whom he regards as a "thug," and very supportive of theUkrainianOrange Revolution in 2004.
Cooper has criticized the liberal position ongun 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".[7]
Over the past few years Cooper has sharply criticized theCuban 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[citation needed].
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;[8]Pinochet and Me: A Chilean Anti Memoir (2001) which was an L.A. Times best-seller;[3] andThe Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas (2004).[9]
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