FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(BOSTON, Mass.) – Beginning today, Arun Rath, former host of NPR’s All Things Considered Weekend, assumes a new role as a shared correspondent for NPR and Boston-based public broadcaster WGBH News. He will be based in the WGBH newsroom and his time will be divided between filing national stories for NPR and local stories for WGBH News.

Rath’s reporting beat will cover the science of learning, exploring how the brain functions – how we experience emotions, making errors or boredom – and how we respond to different styles of learning. The beat dovetails well with several of WGBH News’ core regional coverage areas, bolstering its reporting on higher education (On Campus), innovation (Innovation Hub) and science (Living Lab from WGBH and WCAI in Woods Hole on Cape Cod).

“The neuroscience research happening here in Boston is fascinating, groundbreaking and underreported. What Arun will be digging into will greatly contribute to other topic areas we are covering at WGBH News, and the same is true for NPR’s national audience,” said Phil Redo, general manager for WGBH Radio. “We are happy to welcome Arun back to WGBH. His experience is another huge addition to our growing local newsroom and we are proud to partner with NPR to build out this new reporting beat.”

“This is another great example of the collaboration between NPR and member stations in bringing listeners the highest quality independent journalism,” said Chris Turpin, NPR’s vice president of news programming and operations. “Arun will be reporting from his home base in Boston and will bring the insightful and innovative approach to this new beat that has delighted his NPR listeners for years.” 

Rath was the host of NPR’s All Things Considered on the weekends from 2013 until September, seeing the show through its relocation to NPR West in Culver City. Prior to hosting All Things Considered, Rath had a varied career in public media as a reporter, producer and editor, most recently as a senior reporter for the PBS public affairs series Frontline, and PRI’s The World, both headquartered and produced by WGBH Boston. At both outlets, Rath specialized in national security and military justice. He reported and produced three films for Frontline, including an investigation of alleged war crimes committed by U.S. Marines in Haditha, Iraq that was nominated for an Emmy. 

He began his journalism career as an NPR intern at an NPR call-in program called Talk of the Nation, eventually joining the staff and becoming the show's director after working on several NPR News programs during the 1990s. In 2000, he became senior producer for NPR's On the Media, produced by WNYC, where he was part of a team that tripled its audience and won a Peabody Award. He spent 2005 as senior editor at the culture and arts show Studio 360 from PRI and WNYC. He moved to television in 2005 to report and manage radio partnerships for Frontline, and also reported on culture and music for the PBS series Sound Tracks. 

“I feel especially lucky that I’m in a position to get the best of all worlds—I’ll be continuing on air with NPR on an exciting beat, and at the same time returning to WGBH, where I was able to do so much great work in the past, at Frontline, Nova, The World and others,” said Arun Rath. “And I’ll be back together with my amazing wife and kids in Boston. So this is wonderful for me on just about every level imaginable.”

The WGBH News team draws on the talent of a multi-platform newsroom in Boston that includes radio, television and digital reporting. In September 2015 the newsroom added Kate McCarthy Zachry from ABC News and Aaron Schachter from PRI’s The World to its senior leadership team. With a deep roster of talent and several reporting partnerships, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR) and The Groundtruth Project, the WGBH newsroom continues to invest in quality, substantive news coverage with local context and crafting the stories that only public media can tell. 

About WGBH
WGBH Boston is America’s preeminent public broadcaster and the largest producer of PBS content for TV and the Web. Television channels include WGBH 2, WGBX 44, and the digital channels World and Create. WGBH Radio serves listeners across New England with 89.7 WGBH, Boston's Local NPR®; 99.5 WCRB; and WCAI, the Cape and Islands NPR® Station.  wgbh.org

MEDIA CONTACT
Colleen Flynn, WGBH
617-300-3904
colleen_flynn@wgbh.org