Abby Martin

 Martin was born in Pleasanton, California. She graduated from Amador Valley High School in 2002. She became interested in journalism after her former high school buddy was drafted into the military following the September 11 attacks in 2001. "I was not interested in him going to war, let alone being a part of one," she recalls. "I began to think critically about 'What is really going on in the world?" She began to consider the "selling" by the media of the Iraq War as a sophomore at San Diego State University. She earned an undergraduate degree in political science and majored in Spanish. She volunteered in the John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004 but was disillusioned by the paradigm of left-right. This theory suggests that people are more likely to divide their ideologies into opposing sides. Martin was an investigative journalist at the San Diego-based news website prior to shifting to Northern California.