Marc Cooper

Contributing Editor

Marc Cooper's career in journalism began in 1966, when he founded and edited an underground newspaper in high school in Los Angeles. After being expelled from the California State University system for his antiwar activities in 1971 by order of Governor Ronald Reagan, he signed on to work in the press office of Chilean President Salvador Allende. The 1973 military coup found Cooper working as Allende's translator for publication, and he left Chile as a UN-protected refugee eight days after the bloody takeover.

Since then Cooper has traveled the world covering politics and culture for myriad press outlets. He reported on the Yom Kippur War, Lebanon, South Africa, Central and South America, Eastern and Western Europe and domestic American politics for dozens of publications ranging from Playboy and Rolling Stone to the Sunday magazines of the Los Angeles Times and The Times of London.

Cooper was news and public affairs director of KPFK-FM (Los Angeles) from 1980-83 and has been a correspondent for NBC, CBC and Monitor Radio. For television, he has been a reporter and a producer of news documentaries for CBS News, The Christian Science Monitor and PBS Frontline.

Cooper's journalism awards include prizes from The Society of Professional Journalists and PEN America, and several from the California Associated Press TV and Radio Association.

An anthology of Cooper's work, Roll Over Che Guevara: Travels of a Radical Reporter, was published by Verso in 1994. He was also a contributor to the collection Literary Las Vegas, published in 1995 by Holt.

Returning to the system from which he was expelled, Cooper has also taught in the journalism departments at the Northridge and Los Angeles campuses of California State University.

He is currently host and executive producer of The Nation's syndicated weekly radio show, RadioNation.

His Pinochet and Me: A Chilean Anti-Memoir (Verso), is now available in paperback.

Currently

  • GOP Clutches at Iowa Straws

    August 23, 2007 Subscribe

    The Iowa straw poll offered a penetrating glimpse into the crisis facing the Republican party.

  • Laboring for Edwards

    May 10, 2007 Subscribe

    John Edwards is meticulously laying the groundwork to become the candidate of organized labor, insisting prosperity can expand only if unionization expands.

  • Betting on Healthcare

    April 3, 2007 Subscribe

    At a union-sponsored forum in Las Vegas, John Edwards presented a real healthcare plan, but Hillary Clinton captured the crowd.

  • Lockdown in Greeley

    February 15, 2007

    A recent police raid on a small-city factory showcases the Bush Administration's frightening war on illegal immigration.

  • The Press and the Watada Trial

    January 23, 2007

    Also at stake in the trial of an Army officer who refuses to deploy to Iraq is the independence of the press.

2006

  • Lt. Ehren Watada: Resister

    December 28, 2006 Subscribe

    Facing a showdown court-martial for refusing to serve in an illegal and unjust war, Lieut. Ehren Watada has become a flashpoint for the antiwar movement.

  • About Face

    December 20, 2006

    In the most significant movement of dissident soldiers since Vietnam, nearly 1,000 active-duty officers and enlisted personnel have petitioned the government to withdraw from Iraq.

  • About Face: Soldiers Call for Iraq Withdrawal

    December 16, 2006

    For the first time since Vietnam, active-duty military personnel have organized to oppose a war that they are fighting.

  • Pinochet's Legacy

    December 14, 2006 Subscribe

    The death of Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet should not blunt the work of healing the damage he has done and shining light on the truth.

  • Bad Day in CA

    October 26, 2006 Subscribe

    While Democrats on the national level dream of a landslide, in California, the party is facing another electoral debacle.

  • The Minutemen Hit the Wall

    October 5, 2006

    As Democratic Congressional candidates in Arizona embrace comprehensive immigration reform, conservative Republicans are no longer winning on their "militarize the border" message.

  • Swing-Time in New Mexico

    July 13, 2006

    In the ultimate swing district of the ultimate swing state, Patricia Madrid is trying to unseat New Mexico Representative "Leather" Heather Wilson. Is her Mountain State liberalism potent enough to win?

  • The Race to Replace Arnold: Running on Empty

    May 18, 2006 Subscribe

    The limp grassroots response to Democratic gubernatorial candidates reveals that the plummeting popularity of one party doesn't automatically translate into support for the other.

  • Showdown on Immigration

    March 16, 2006

    After twenty years of inaction, the US Senate is considering sweeping immigration reform. But a push for quick action and the November elections may thwart the current bipartisan consensus.

2005

  • Arnold Show: Canceled

    November 10, 2005 Subscribe

    Buoyed by their defeat of Schwarzeneggar's "referendum revolution," Democrats and organized labor are now energized to defeat the governor's re-election bid next year.

  • Gore Vidal, Octocontrarian

    October 20, 2005

    Marc Cooper interviews Gore Vidal about an America that is increasingly controlled by corporations and suggests that the Gulf Coast hurricanes and the Iraq debacle signal the breakdown of an empire.

  • Is the Terminator in Free-Fall?

    October 12, 2005

    Once seen as the vehicle of hope and reform, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger looks increasingly like an oil-burning jalopy of politics-as-usual.

  • Stumbling Schwarzenegger

    June 15, 2005

    The California governor's campaign to pass a series of ballot initiatives is off to a rocky start.

  • Twelve Die on the US Border

    May 24, 2005

    A dozen deaths in three days marks the onset of the season of death along the US-Mexican border.

  • High Noon on the Border

    May 19, 2005

    Immigration reform has a real chance of passing, and the nativist right is furious.

  • Labor's Lost in LA

    May 5, 2005

    By supporting LA's incumbent mayor, the labor movement may have weakened its hand.

  • The Terminator Stumbles

    April 14, 2005 Subscribe

    Arnold Schwarzenegger now holds a markedly weakened hand.

  • When Liberals Collide

    February 24, 2005 Subscribe

    The Los Angeles mayoral race raises difficult questions for progressives.

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Podcast

RadioNation with Laura Flanders, 10/6/08
Can young voters stand up to suppression and swing Election 2008? Plus: Robert Fisk on the Middle East, and McCain's Russia scandal. (13mb mp3)

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