Rachel Marsden (born December 2, 1974) is a Canadian conservative political columnist and television commentator based in Paris. She is the former host of a talk show on Sputnik News[1] and is a columnist for the Toronto Sun.[2] Her column is syndicated by Tribune Content Agency[3] and she is a regular contributor to the English and French services of the RT news channel.
Marsden grew up in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia.[5] As a high school student at Terry Fox Secondary School in 1992, Marsden received a bronze Governor General's Academic Medal.[6] Marsden was inspired to go into journalism by listening to Canadian radio personality Jack Webster when she was growing up.[7] In 2002, she took a political journalism training course at the National Journalism Center in Washington, DC. Marsden graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Simon Fraser University (SFU) with a minor in French language.[8] As an SFU student, Marsden came to public attention when she was at the centre of the Simon Fraser University 1997 harassment controversy, in which she and a swimming coach publicly accused each other of sexual harassment.[9][10] The coach was dismissed, then exonerated and re-hired by the university after doubts were raised about the credibility of Marsden's accusations against him.[11][7][12] Over ten years later, Marsden was interviewed by the university's newspaper and said of the events: "[The administration] were more interested in quelling negative PR than defending the truth. I was told by SFU to keep quiet and say nothing to the media. My only regret is that I listened to them."[13]