Rachel Carlton covers the Harris County Commissioners Court in Houston for Community Impact Newspaper, which delivers hyperlocal news. Before joining Community Impact, Carlton was a freelance journalist based in Houston, and a contributor to the “City Cast Houston” podcast. A standout in the 2020 Big Scribble competition, Carlton graduated from Rice University with bachelor’s degrees in cognitive sciences and linguistics. Her first taste of journalism came as a junior at Rice, where she co-authored an opinion piece for the student paper, the Rice Thresher, on the experience of sexual assault survivors. Carlton later joined the paper’s staff and provided key COVID-19 coverage.
Beat: Community reporting in Harris County
Harris County is one of the largest counties in the U.S., and home to Houston. This reporter is based in North Houston and covers news in Harris County key to nine Community Impact editions and hundreds of thousands of readers in the metro area.