Hi! I am Matt Hershberger. I am a writer, editor, and activist based out of New Jersey.
I was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and went to undergrad at Penn State University, where I got my BA in Journalism. Upon graduation, I started traveling the world and blogging about it while working random jobs. I later got a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where I wrote my dissertation on the U.S. conservative media's treatment of the children of undocumented immigrants and how that treatment affected policy.
My career since has been a mixture of communications and human rights activism:
I worked as the website and social media manager for the pro-immigrant American Immigration Council during the 2013 immigration reform push.
I worked as a prolific writer and editor for the Matador Network travel site, where I built out their political and climate-related verticals.
I taught lifelong learner classes and gave keynote lectures on Human Rights at Brookdale Community College.
I worked at the Red Bank Public Library in New Jersey, where I created a monthly climate-focused speaker series, started a Seed Library, vastly expanded the comics collection, and started a Labor & Digital Literacy Lab that has helped hundreds of local residents learn computer skills, get jobs, and access online benefits in the midst of the post-pandemic fallout.
My Writing
As the great Bill Moyers put it, I believe a journalist should be someone who learns in public. I’m an omnivorous learner, and my specialty is in connecting the political to the personal. I’ve written about books, culture, politics, activism, travel, food, and philosophy, and the connections between all of them.
As the parent of two small children, I’m also deeply interested in how to raise kind, decent people in a world that feels increasingly chaotic and dangerous.
You can read about my past writings and current projects here.