WU Photo Services“I got interested in being a journalist at some point during my freshman year,” explained Ken Cooper, national editor for the Boston Globe.
Cooper, a Washington University and Student Life alumnus, is grateful for his experience working at the student-run newspaper.
“It helped me quite a lot, because I took a few courses in the University College and I was able to test those skills with Student Life,” he said.
His role on the newspaper was that of a news editor, a position that took a lot of his time. While he “can’t put a number” on how much time he spent per week working on the paper, he feels his time was well-spent.
“[Production] was kind of a fun, seat of-the-pants operation… It usually ran pretty late,” said Cooper. “[Student Life] was a good way to know students who weren’t in your dorm or in your classes… We made a nice team.”
This team included Greg Freeman and Mitch Margo as co-editors in chief, during the 1976-1977 school year. Cooper believes that he and his “teammates” revolutionized the paper.
“In general terms, those of us who led [Student Life] that particular year led the paper in the direction of being a campus-oriented newspaper, which was a break from what had been in recent years,” he said. “We made it the campus newspaper.”
One way in which Cooper remembers accomplishing this was with scandalous information concerning the university.
“We sort of wanted to finish with a bang,” said Cooper. “We were the first Student Life staff to publish the university’s tax returns… we had a couple stories about that… including mug shots.”
Cooper compared his current job at the Boston Globe to the old days at Student Life. About the latter he said, “It serves a smaller community so it was easer to detect the impact we had.”
During his college years, Cooper was also active in student government and the Association of Black Students. He graduated in 1977 with a degree in English. He is still an active part of the WU community as a member of Washington University Student Media, Inc. (WUSMI), a board that advises and publishes Student Life. He also received the university’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1989.
Before moving to the Boston Globe, he was employed at the St. Louis American and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. While at the Globe, Cooper was part of a team of reporters that received a Pulitzer Prize for contributing to a 13-piece expose called “The Race Factor.” This piece focused on racism in the Boston area and affirmative action at Boston area universities.
Cooper’s other accomplishments include becoming the first African-American national correspondent of the Knight-Ridder newspaper group. While at that post, he covered major political stories such as the 1988 presidential campaign of Michael S. Dukakis.
When all is said and done, Cooper looks back fondly on his experiences at WU, in particular at Student Life. He remembers the people at the paper most of all.
“I think it was working with the people,” said Cooper. “We’re still pals.”