Rachel produces all of the digital and social media content for NPR’s Here & Now show, based at WBUR in Boston. She’s also on the advisory board of the audio-based social media startup Spoken.co, helping to create its first iPhone app. Ahead of the 2014 midterm elections, Rachel won a fellowship from WBUR’s iLab to spend a month driving cross-country in her Vanagon camper van, talking with young Americans about the issues most important to them. Her “Alternate Routes” project included daily interviews and photos. Before joining Here & Now in 2012, Rachel was a senior news writer for WBUR. Previously she was a staff reporter at the Vineyard Gazette on Martha’s Vineyard. She has also worked at a solar startup and as a Vatican City tour guide. She lived on a 27-foot sailboat for two and a half years, including seven months spent traveling from Massachusetts to Florida and back. Rachel has a degree in journalism and mass communication from New York University, where she was a staff writer for school’s daily paper. She credits her hometown newspaper, the Canton Citizen, for giving her her first newspaper job at age 17 and sparking her interest in journalism.
Recent Work
“Alternate Routes” project on Here & Now’s Tumblr
I created Here & Now’s Tumblr, which now has 9,500+ followers and is a home for special projects, including my own project ahead of the 2014 midterm elections. “Alternate Routes” included audio, photos, videos and writing, along with on-air segments. The project’s primary home was Tumblr, but it was also on SoundCloud, Instagram and Twitter, as well as on hereandnow.org when I did on-air segments. [Note: Don’t mind the election branding at the top of the Tumblr, as Here & Now is currently in the midst of another special project.]