Rachel Martin
Rachel Martin is a host of Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.
Before taking on this role in December 2016, Martin was the host of Weekend Edition Sunday for four years. Martin also served as National Security Correspondent for NPR, where she covered both defense and intelligence issues. She traveled regularly to Iraq and Afghanistan with the Secretary of Defense, reporting on the U.S. wars and the effectiveness of the Pentagon's counterinsurgency strategy. Martin also reported extensively on the changing demographic of the U.S. military – from the debate over whether to allow women to fight in combat units – to the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Her reporting on how the military is changing also took her to a U.S. Air Force base in New Mexico for a rare look at how the military trains drone pilots.
Martin was part of the team that launched NPR's experimental morning news show, The Bryant Park Project, based in New York — a two-hour daily multimedia program that she co-hosted with Alison Stewart and Mike Pesca.
In 2006-2007, Martin served as NPR's religion correspondent. Her piece on Islam in America was awarded "Best Radio Feature" by the Religion News Writers Association in 2007. As one of NPR's reporters assigned to cover the Virginia Tech massacre that same year, she was on the school's campus within hours of the shooting and on the ground in Blacksburg, Va., covering the investigation and emotional aftermath in the following days.
Based in Berlin, Germany, Martin worked as a NPR foreign correspondent from 2005-2006. During her time in Europe, she covered the London terrorist attacks, the federal elections in Germany, the 2006 World Cup and issues surrounding immigration and shifting cultural identities in Europe.
Her foreign reporting experience extends beyond Europe. Martin has also worked extensively in Afghanistan. She began reporting from there as a freelancer during the summer of 2003, covering the reconstruction effort in the wake of the U.S. invasion. In fall 2004, Martin returned for several months to cover Afghanistan's first democratic presidential election. She has reported widely on women's issues in Afghanistan, the fledgling political and governance system and the U.S.-NATO fight against the insurgency. She has also reported from Iraq, where she covered U.S. military operations and the strategic alliance between Sunni sheiks and the U.S. military in Anbar province.
Martin started her career at public radio station KQED in San Francisco, as a producer and reporter.
She holds an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, and a Master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University.
-
Our medical bill of the month for April highlights how auto insurance may not always cover all the medical expenses you might have when you are involved in an accident.
-
President Biden plans to re-establish the U.S. as a climate leader. Protesters gather in Columbus after an officer shot a Black teenage girl. Schools aim to help kids after a year of uncertainty.
-
"It would have been unimaginable just even a month ago that something like that was possible," activist and civil rights lawyer Nekima Levy Armstrong says following Derek Chauvin's murder conviction. -
The former president's book features his portraits of 43 immigrants — athletes, public servants, business leaders, educators — in an effort to join those saying, "The system's broken. Let's fix it."
-
Former police officer Derek Chauvin is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty in the murder of George Floyd. Reaction to the verdict has been passionate across Minneapolis and the nation.
-
Biblical womanhood is a pervasive concept among evangelicals. A new book by historian Beth Allison Barr argues those ideas may be more secular than scriptural.
-
Kishi Bashi reflects on the Asian American experience and the pain of pursuing acceptance in his Morning Edition Song Project entry, "For Every Voice That Never Sang."
-
Disinformation and conspiracy theories are rampant on the Internet. One platform that's seen a surge in that content and disinformation is YouTube. We explore what the company is doing in response.
-
NPR's resident poet Kwame Alexander created a community poem from submissions that reflected on increased violence and discrimination against Asian Americans.
-
The celebrated Korean actor plays a loving, mischievous grandma in Minari — a role that has earned her newfound fame in the U.S. She says the character brought back memories of her great-grandmother.
