"A quick Internet search for any Charlottesville newsmaker is likely to yield dozens of links to www.loper.org/~george. For example, Google finds a whopping 63 links for City Councilor Rob Schilling on the site, which is run by George Loper, 57, a local liberal and media maven.

“I saw things I’d forgotten I’d even written,” says Lloyd Snook, local Democratic Party chairperson, of the links his name turned up on the Loper page.

With deep archives stretching back to 1996 and beyond, and a daily drumbeat of content, some of it original, the Loper webpage has become a repository of information on local politics and personalities, as well as national issues that are hot in progressive circles.

“It’s completely arbitrary,” Loper says of the material on his site, most of which are links to news articles and letters from readers. On a recent sunny morning at his office, which is on the second floor of his home in the Greenbrier neighborhood, Loper points to a two-foot-tall stack of newspaper clippings that is to be scanned and uploaded to his website.

Loper sporadically hires two writers to help him write for the free webpage, and regularly sends e-mails to a list of about 350 people who signed up to receive updates. And though Loper works with and has served on the boards of several local groups, including Planned Parenthood and the Piedmont Housing Alliance, running the giant website is his chief calling.

Loper may be the site’s editor, but he says he doesn’t personally agree with the majority of its material.

“If you’ve got a good discourse, then things will come out right. My contribution is not about advancing agendas,” Loper says.

So what drives Loper to be the de facto archivist of local politics?

Loper, who has a master’s degree in social work, says he created the site in part because he missed the “intellectual dialogue” of the UVA community, which he had not been directly involved with since he finished postgraduate work there in 1982. (Loper’s wife, Ann Booker Loper, is a professor and director of programs in clinical and school psychology at UVA’s Curry School.)

“I had some time on my hands and I wanted to see what was going on,” Loper says of his decision to start the website about a decade ago. “By giving other people voice, it also gives me voice.”

Loper’s political ideology has shifted a great deal since his teenage days in San Antonio, Texas, where he says he was a “Barry Goldwater conservative.” While at the University of Texas at Austin during the Vietnam War, Loper, a conscientious objector, decided that certain situations require Federal involvement, and a devout Democrat was born.

When asked if he ever wishes he’d become a professional journalist, Loper says, “Oh absolutely.” But though his site, which he admits is about what interests him, might not qualify as pure journalism, it certainly pursues several journalistic goals, including holding local figures accountable. When a noteworthy statement is made in Charlottesville, it likely lands on Loper’s site—and stays there.

“If you ever thought that e-mail is not a permanent thing, you’re sure wrong where George is concerned,” Snook says." (Paul Fain, C-Ville Weekly, March 9, 2004)

Editor's Note: For previous reviews of the Loper web site, see George Loper's Home Page a Winner, Fight site - Dems dialogue on, The Best of Charlottesville 2000, and Sporty Spoof.