Directory:Rachel Marsden
Rachel Marsden is a New York based political analyst, author and conservative political operative, who has appeared on Fox News, CNN, CNBC, CBC, Global Television, and CTV, as well as a guest on various radio programs around the world. She has written a weekly syndicated political column for Sun Media and has contributed to publications such as the New York Post, Washington Times/United Press International, and the Vancouver Sun. She was previously a twice-weekly national/international political columnist for the National Post – one of Canada’s two national newspapers.
Early Life
Born in 1974 in Vancouver, Canada, Marsden was raised in the birthplace of political talk-radio, where she also holds several major records in competitive swimming from her days as an international level competitor. The fully bilingual former print and runway model was schooled almost exclusively in French until high school. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Simon Fraser University on a full academic scholarship before pursuing graduate studies in law and criminology, a journalism degree at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, and then political journalism at the National Journalism Center in Washington, DC. For her academic efforts, she was awarded the Canadian Governor General’s medal for academic excellence.
Career
After working as a producer, anchor, camerawoman, and reporter for a cable news outlet in her hometown, and as a videographer for Rugby Canada and BC Rugby, her first major media position was with ABC News’ 20/20 in New York City, where she apprenticed under Connie Chung. Marsden worked in DC as a Director of a conservative think-tank that was a key component of President George W. Bush’s beltway coalition during the lead-up to the Iraq War.
She returned to her native Canada to work as an operative on two simultaneous federal campaigns for Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party in the province of British Columbia, specializing in communications strategy and opposition intelligence. At the same time, she began hosting a call-in talk-radio show in Vancouver, BC, where she interviewed guests ranging from Canada’s then Deputy Prime Minister, Sheila Copps and current Public Safety MinisterStockwell Day, to Ann Coulter and Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy of the Richard Nixon administration.
It was this hour-long interview with Liddy – in which he talked in-depth about his role in Watergate and the scandal’s aftermath – that caught the attention of David Asper, the Executive Vice-President of the CanWest Global media empire, who offered her a Toronto-based political columnist position at the National Post, in conjunction with then publisher Lester Pyette.
Having quickly established a unique, controversial, populist conservative voice in the Canadian media, she switched to a regular column in the Sun Media chain, and started her own public relations and communications company on Toronto’s Bay Street.
While based in Toronto, Marsden started out with the Fox News Channel in 2004 as the Canadian Correspondent for The O'Reilly Factor -- the top-rated cable news show in the world -- after she was spotted as a regular panelist on Dennis Miller's CNBC show in Los Angeles. She was recruited by Rupert Murdoch’s chief lieutenant and former Ronald Reagan communications strategist, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who personally selected her to be the only conservative (and only woman) on a daily talk show with three other co-hosts. She immigrated to the USA on a rare visa, typically reserved for Nobel Prize recipients, Academy Award winners and leading world experts.
Marsden soon became regarded as one of the most influential conservative voices in North America. Her defense of new French President Nicolas Sarkozy was cited by the nation’s top radio talk-show host, Rush Limbaugh, in encouraging Americans to stop their criticism of France. Her column “Since Jesus Isn’t Running, Why Not Rudy?” chided far-right conservatives for their lack of initial support for Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani – a politician whose positions and policies Marsden has admitted most closely resemble her own.
After several months, Marsden left the show, stating, “The show has drastically changed direction since its inception and no longer has a place for a political expert.”
Marsden has since returned to her entrepreneurial roots, picking and choosing interviews, appearances and projects, and working with various television and radio networks as a free-agent. She continues to work as a political operative and media consultant.
She is currently authoring her first book about politics, due in 2009.
Since arriving in the USA, Marsden has been named “Worst Person In The World” by NBC’s Keith Olbermann, a leader of the liberal media. She’s often the object of speculation by the New York gossip media, alongside A-list celebrities like Nicole Kidman and Paris Hilton – a fact that Marsden has called “a puzzling, and frankly extremely stupid phenomenon.”
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