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.
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For the final entry in Morning Edition's Song Project series, Vijay Iyer wrote a rhizomatic, inviting — and not entirely placating — instrumental piece to encapsulate his past year.
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A feminist son, says author Sonora Jha, means "a boy who believes in the full humanity of women and girls around him." It also means recognizing that as they grow older, they can be led by women.
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NPR's Rachel Martin spoke to the pianist about Phenomenal Women, the most recent mini-album in the series, in which Downes re-recorded the work of some deeply impactful female composers.
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The duo, famed for enmeshing classical and hip-hop, looks back at America's past year and toward its near future on a new song, "Time to Shine."
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Dr. Vivek Murthy tells NPR: "The reality is that loneliness is a natural signal that our body gives us, similar to hunger, thirst. And that's how important human connection is."
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Victoria James loves wine; she became a sommelier at 21 — but she discovered that the world of wine was an old boys' club that didn't welcome women. Her new memoir chronicles her fight to fit in.
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Pulitzer Prize winner Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr detail the alleged secret life of abuse in the Word Of Faith Fellowship: "They take more and more control of your lives" over time, they say.
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Latinx writers and critics are speaking out against Jeanine Cummins' new book American Dirt, calling its depiction of the migrant experience inauthentic and harmful. We asked Cummins to respond.
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Ada Calhoun talked to a lot of Gen X women about the angst they feel as they approach midlife — the pressure to have it all and the feeling that they should have done better for themselves.
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NPR's Rachel Martin talks to Matt Saincome and Bill Conway, co-founders of the satirical punk rock news website The Hard Times, about their new book.