PhotosWhen Vulgar Favors, Maureen Orth's book about the murderous saga of Andrew Cunanan, hit the best-seller lists last month, a national audience was offered a sinister portrait of San Diego, far different from the image …
June 2, 2026
Matt Potter has been a staff writer and editor at the San Diego Reader since 1989. He reports on politics and local institutions such as the Union-Tribune, UCSD, SDSU, and the City and County of San Diego.
He is the author of the weekly Under the Radar column.
Besides breaking the Cheetahs corruption story a year before the FBI raided the offices of the San Diego city council, he has written extensively on governance, medical ethics, and human experimentation issues at the University of California San Diego.
Some notable Potter stories:
June 1, 1989:The Egg Women (Mayor O'Connor, Joan Kroc, Helen Copley, and the Faberge eggs)
April, 25, 1991 Mayor Moves to Create Death Valley-like Wasteland in Point Loma (O'Connor house landscaping)
June 20, 1991: A Son by Any Other Name (Helen Copley's adoption of son David revealed)
Aug. 8, 1996: Welcome, GOP Delegates to San Diego, City of Shame
May 22, 1997: La Jolla Gentlemen and the Party Boy (secrets of Andrew Cunanan, gay serial killer)
Oct. 25, 2001: Did Bin Laden's Brother Lead a Secret Life in San Diego?
Nov. 29, 2001: Did Casey Gwinn Try to Get Don Bauder Fired? (City Attorney vs. tough reporter)
July 31, 2003: Fun with Ralph (Inzunza's eating companions at Dobson's)
Articles by Matt Potter
Vanity Fair on the San Diego trail of Andrew Cunanan
How San Diego's Union-Tribune defined our town
When Ira Clifton Copley of Aurora, Illinois, first saw San Diego on a trip with his ailing brother to the Hotel del Coronado in 1891, it was a dingy town on the southern fringe of …
May 8, 2026
San Diegans who married into money
"Your wife has an ownership interest of approximately 11 percent in the Miracle Recreation Company, a Missouri company which designs, manufactures, and sells playground equipment. This interest is a separate property interest arising from your …
April 18, 2026
UCSD experiments on blood of those south of Interstate 8
It reads like a bad science fiction novel: A small Illinois biotech company cuts a deal with UCSD. The university agrees to test a substitute for human blood on comatose patients — victims of gunshots …
April 9, 2026
San Diego Reader writers tell their dream stories never written
STEPHEN ESMEDINAStephen EsmedinaA number of years ago, I was persuaded by a guileful siren with designs on the music biz to share my lowly downtown apartment for “a couple of days” with the great but …
March 5, 2026
The meaning of tiki culture in San Diego
The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …
September 5, 2025
Real San Diego 1950s stories
Taken by a SharkState game wardens began hunting the beast by trailing cattle blood in the water, from their patrol boat, between Bird Rock and the Scripps Pier. They found no shark of the magnitude …
September 1, 2025
Bruce Henderson – the most hated man in San Diego
The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …
August 1, 2025
How Helen and David Copley came to run the San Diego Union-Tribune
The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …
July 30, 2025