Career journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Dick Cooper has been named as Co-Publisher and Managing Editor of the Talbot Spy, Talbot County’s leading Internet newspaper.
Cooper was a reporter and editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer for 28 years covering metropolitan and community news. Prior to his work at the Inquirer, he was a reporter at the Rochester (N.Y.) Times-Union. In 1972 he and fellow reporter John Machacek won, the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for their coverage of the Attica Prison riot in Upstate New York.
The appointment was announced Friday by Dave Wheelan, Founder of Spy Publications.
Cooper will oversee the news, culture and arts sections of the Talbot Spy as well as provide editorial support for both the Talbot Spy and the Chestertown Spy.
Dick Cooper
“Dick brings an unparalleled wealth of experience to the Spy, particularly in the area of local news. At the Inquirer, Dick was really a pioneer in creating hyper-local metro sections for the Philadelphia suburbs. It still remains a remarkably viable model today for the Internet,” said Wheelan.
Cooper will be based at Spy’s St. Michaels office, where he will work closely with Spy’s news reporter Dan Menefee, Food and Garden Editor Nancy Robson, Cultural Editor Andy Goddard and Art Director Jean Sanders. He will begin with the Spy September 6, 2011.
“The Talbot Spy is pleased and extremely lucky to have someone with Dick’s extraordinary writing and editing skills,” Wheelan said. “He is the kind of real professional who will help ensure that the Spy’s coverage is fast, accurate and authoritative.”
Since moving to St. Michaels, Cooper regularly contributes to the publications of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels. He also produces newsletters and writes occasionally for the William Penn Foundation, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Bay Journal News Service, the Miles River Yacht Club, and the Tidewater Times and Shore Life magazines. He taught journalism for 10 years at Temple University.
“I’m delighted to be joining the Talbot Spy,” Cooper said. “I can’t imagine a more exciting experiment in journalism right now. I’ve sailed the Chesapeake Bay for more than three decades and have been fascinated by the region most of my life, so the prospect of the covering it for the Spy is both a delight and a serious responsibility.”
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