Clint Cooper is the Free Press editor at the Chattanooga Times Free Press, representing the conservative side of the newspaper's opinion section. Previously he worked as a lifestyles reporter, and has been an assistant sports editor and Metro staff writer for the newspaper. Prior to the merger between the Chattanooga Free Press and Chattanooga Times in 1999, he was sports news editor for the Chattanooga Free Press, where he was in charge of the day-to-day content of the section and the section's design. Before becoming sports news editor, he was a staff writer. In the Life section, he is responsible for the content of the weekly religion page but also contributes entertainment stories to the current section; health, home and profile stories for the daily Life pages; and general news articles to the news columns. In the past, he has written on technology and baby boomers for the section. Clint has received honors over the years for his writing and design in both individual work and work as part of a team or section. Among those are several best overall team coverage awards from the Southern League (when he was either lead writer or content/design editor), a best section award by the Tennessee Sports Writers Association (when he was content/design editor) and several first-place awards in the community lifestyles category of the Tennessee Press Association contest (as part of a staff). The Chattanooga native is a cum laude graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a degree in mass communications and did postgraduate work there in secondary education. Clint and his wife of 21 years, Donna, have one son, Patrick, 18. He enjoys acting, reading and running. Contact Clint at 423-757-6497 or ccooper@timesfreepress.com. You may friend him on Facebook.
Tim Kelly, convincingly elected Tuesday in a runoff to be Chattanooga's next mayor, will be the first non-developer businessman to hold the position since shortly after World War II.
by Clint CooperChattanooga has become just another drop-off site for unaccompanied illegal immigrant children, who have been allowed to come into the country from Mexico and countries farther south by the Biden administration.
by Clint CooperThe ideology that demands purity in thought and speech among Black Americans is alive and well in Chattanooga.
by Clint CooperFifty years ago this month, passenger train service into and out of Chattanooga was in its death throes.
by Clint CooperChattanoogans can help determine their future for the next four or eight years Tuesday when they elect a new mayor.
by Clint CooperUnlike the two candidates in District 2, the candidates for the District 5 seat on the Chattanooga City Council have little to distinguish between them.
by Clint CooperBoth candidates for the Chattanooga City Council seat from District 2 are small business owners, spouses, parents and decent people who have chosen to make this city their home and want to give back to it through public service.
by Clint CooperWhen Chattanooga lost its 99-year-old hometown Medal of Honor recipient Charles Coolidge Wednesday, it lost more than a man honored with the country's highest and most prestigious military decoration. It also lost a man of values whose like is disappearing all too rapidly from our increasingly self-centered nation.
by Clint CooperThe Tennessee House wants United States President Joe Biden and all future White House inhabitants to know it will have an eye on any executive order they sign.
by Clint CooperThe fact that a local private school had to triple its security force in the face of threats because it wouldn't relax its dress code to suit a potential student speaks volumes about how far off the track the country has careened.
by Clint CooperHow much is the $71 million that Hamilton County will receive from the federal government in President Joe Biden's debt-spiraling American Rescue Plan?
by Clint CooperNo state has tried more often than Tennessee to make the Bible its state book.
by Clint Cooper"An unwelcome prank," ABC titled its online report.
by Clint CooperLife would be simpler if laws were as open and shut as their supporters and detractors make them out to be.
by Clint CooperPlanned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, has not had a staff member in Chattanooga in 16 years but hopes to change that in the near future.
by Clint CooperYou can't win if you don't play.
by Clint Cooper"Forty years ago, having passed my 30th birthday, and imbued with all the hubris that only the young can assume," Bill Brock wrote in a 2002 forward to an autobiography written by his longtime assistant, Olive Hunt, "I decided to run for Congress."
by Clint CooperA phone call or two would have been nice.
by Clint Cooper"Ugh!" a friend posted on Facebook two weeks ago. "This stuff is no joke!!"
by Clint CooperTim Kelly and Kim White may not agree on which of the two is better suited to be mayor of Chattanooga for the next four years, but they found one topic on which they wholeheartedly agreed Monday night.
by Clint Cooper