NPR’s Rachel Martin will step away from ‘Morning Edition’ for new project

Rachel Martin, a co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition, is leaving the program.

NPR announced Thursday that Martin “is trading her early mornings and daily headlines to develop an NPR project in the realms of religion, spirituality, and meaning.” The news release noted that Martin will continue to appear on the network’s newsmagazines and will stay on as host of Up First on Sundays.

“Rachel’s accomplishments at NPR are many, and we are thrilled her award-winning tenure at NPR will continue in this next chapter,” said Eric Marrapodi, VP of news programming, and Edith Chapin, interim SVP of news and editorial director, in a memo to staff. 

Martin first started working for NPR as a freelance foreign correspondent in 2004. She briefly worked as an anchor for KQED in San Francisco but rejoined NPR in 2005 to work as a foreign correspondent. Later, she became a religion correspondent and host of the Bryant Park Project.

She left NPR again in 2008 to work as a White House correspondent for ABC News, then returned to the network in 2010. Since then she has been a national security correspondent, a host for Weekend Edition, and since 2016 a host for Morning Edition. 

“Hosting Morning Edition has been the honor of a lifetime. To have spent six years helping our listeners understand what is happening around the world and in their communities is an experience I will never take for granted,” Martin said in the release. “… I am hoping to go deep for a new project where we ask the biggest kinds of questions about how we live our lives and where we find meaning. Stay tuned. In the meantime, I’m so grateful to be a small part of the Morning Edition legacy.”