Creative Loafing Does Profile of Week on APN Editor
Creative Loafing magazine Atlanta did their profile of the week this week on yours truly, the News Editor who makes progressive news possible.
I am very happy with this profile and I think Candace Wheeler, an intern who is a college student at Spelman College, did a great job. I thought Creative Loafing hated me since I’ve been so critical of their publication, especially their former editor John Sugg, over the years, but I think it’s great that they can be the better person in the situation.
Please go to Fresh Loaf blog for the full interview. A shorter version is scheduled to appear this Wednesday in print.
#### (Reprinted in full for informational purposes)
Profile: Matthew Cardinale, editor of Atlanta Progressive News
June 29, 2009 at 12:58 pm by Candace Wheeler in News, Profile
The plight of the working class, the homeless and the otherwise disenfranchised are the focus of Matthew Cardinale’s online ‘zine Atlanta Progressive News.Cardinale, a liberal-progressive activist, has weathered such setbacks as a violent stabbing on Ponce de Leon Avenue, the loss of his professorship at Georgia State University and the all-consuming power of Georgia’s conservative right.
Tell me why you decided to create Atlanta Progressive News.
There is a gap in the ecosystem of information. If we want people to become involved, then we must provide them the information they need to become participants. I saw news services beginning to do this, and I wrote for a few them and saw that they could be successful. So I created Atlanta Progressive News to serve in a similar function.
What do you believe is the most important issue facing Atlanta today?
Affordable housing is the most important, because so much else falls from housing. If you don’t have housing, you can’t have anything else. There is a lack of affordable housing in Atlanta. The demolition of public housing is creating a worse housing situation. People don’t understand that moving those who live in public housing into the rental market is a terrible idea. Were all struggling. People should be in support of housing as a right. You shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not you can afford housing.
A few years ago, you wrote about an incident in which you were stabbed. Why did you decide to do that?
I wrote about it the morning after, when I was in the hospital. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, and I just wanted people to know, like, “Hey the editor has been stabbed, so stay tuned.
Why do you think you were terminated from Georgia State University over something as seemingly harmless as having an intersex person speak to your class?
I was actually very surprised that this was such a problem. When you’re an academic, you want to teach the truth. Society has to re-examine the definition of sex. We have to change some of our definitions. I really didn’t think it would be a problem to discuss people who were intersex. Later, I learned the department was questioned by Republican legislators who wanted to know why they were funding programs such as oral sex and queer theory. They wanted me to silence these issues that I thought were important, and I wasn’t going to do that.
Is it difficult to express a liberal-progressive viewpoint in a state that is highly conservative?
First of all, yes, Georgia is very conservative. Even Atlanta is conservative compared to a progressive standard. So a lot of times we come up against the centrist stance. The AJC isn’t objective. They are the newsletter of the bourgeoisie and real-estate developers. We don’t pretend to be objective, but at the same time we’re reporting what’s happening.
Name one thing you would change about Atlanta if you could.
I’m going to take it back to class consciousness. If people weren’t trying to pretend to have made it, they would see the greater commonalities among each other. I think a lot of people are falling into that trap.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)