Cooper picks up a gig

Marc Cooper is joining the Huffington Post as special correpondent and will direct coverage of the 2008 political campaigns for OfftheBus.net, a co-venture of the Huffington Post and NewAssignment.net, NYU professor Jay Rosen's experiment in grass roots journalism. Cooper will continue as an LA Weekly writer and as a contributing editor at The Nation. Here's what they say in the flakkery for the new gig:

Huffington: "Marc brings to OffTheBus and *The Huffington Post* an amazing breadth of experience and a finely-honed talent for spotting what makes a good political story. Marc will be a tremendous asset in helping leverage OffTheBus' unique reporting capabilities and *The Huffington* *Post* is thrilled to be adding his seasoned voice and journalistic acumen."

Rosen: "It's rare to find someone with Marc's experience who is so open to the Web and to contributors who can come from anywhere. We couldn't pass that up."

Cooper: "This is a singular opportunity to build a new type of journalism while directly covering an extraordinary presidential campaign. This will be a landmark year in shifting our very definition of political journalism, and I am honored to have been offered a front-row seat."