CNN's Government Regulatory and Transportation Correspondent

Rene Marsh | Biography

Marsh lost her two-year-old song Blake to brain cancer

• By Ashna Tamrakar
• Update : August 23, 2021

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Rene Marsh is a CNN's senior correspondent in the network's Washington office. 

Who Is Rene Marsh?

Rene Marsh is an Emmy-nominated journalist and reporter based in Washington, D.C. She is notably known as a CNN government regulatory and transportation correspondent based in Washington, D.C. She joined the network as a CNN Newsource reporter in 2012, covering for around 800 CNN partner stations.

Marsh previously worked for WSVN in Miami as a general assignment journalist, reporting local political news, breaking news, education, and sports. She also served for CBS 6 News in Albany, New York, as a weekend presenter and an investigative journalist.

Early Life & Education 

Rene Marsh was born on 17 April 1982 in Binghamton, New York, and of Jamaican descent. Marsh attended Benjamin N. Cardozo High School and graduated with a diploma degree in law. For further education, she enrolled at Binghamton University and graduated with honors in Bachelors in Arts. She completed her master's degree in broadcast journalism from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Early Career

Marsh started her professional journey as a journalist in September 2003, working for Louisiana's KTAL. She stayed there for two years until August 2005. Subsequently, she joined WRGB-CBS 6 News, Albany, New York as an investigative reporter and weekend presenter. She worked at the network for almost two years, from March 2006 to January 2008.

She then went on to work as a reporter for WSVN - 7 NEWS, a Fox-affiliated television station in Miami, Florida. There, she served as a general assignment journalist, covering headlines, regional politics, and education news. She worked there for four years until leaving in December 2011 before joining CNN.

Career at CNN

Marsh joined as a CNN Newsource correspondent in 2012, covering for around 800 CNN partner stations. She is based in CNN's Washington office, covering government regulation and transportation. Her job entails reporting on ethics, conflicts of interest, and the misappropriation of government funds at all levels of the federal government. Marsh is also in charge of covering the network's transportation and the country's infrastructure.

News Coverage

Marsh covered the news stories, including the ill-fated Asiana flight 214, the United States Supreme Court's Affordable Care Act, and same-sex marriage judgments. She also reported several breaking news stories like Superstorm Sandy, the fatal Oklahoma tornadoes of 2013, the Sandy Hook and Aurora, Colorado catastrophes.

Besides that, Marsh had reported political stories like the Republican National Convention, the Republican presidential primaries, the presidential debates, and former US President Barack Obama's second inauguration from Washington throughout the presidential election.

She also covered former US President Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, which restricted nationals from seven Islamic nations from traveling the US for 90 days. The seven Muslim countries were Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. Marsh was the first reporter to cover the Customs and Border Protection's instructions to airlines not to allow passengers from specific countries. 

Marsh was also the first to publish the new security infrastructure implementation to safeguard EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Marsh actively engaged in the 2014 reporting of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 and the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine. She became the first correspondent to report on the Dutch crash investigators, who had found that the Russian missile brought down the passenger plane. The investigators also came up with evidence showing pro-Russian rebels as the perpetrators.

In 2018, Marsh covered several reports about the $31,000 dining set purchased by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The same year, she also reported the story of a controversial proposal being considered by the Transportation Security Administration to abolish passenger inspection at over 150 small and medium-sized terminals across the United States. The proposal was scrapped after CNN reported it.

She had also established procedures and reports on the status of the country's infrastructure and sexual assault and harassment on commercial airplanes.

Personal Life 

Marsh has been married to Kedric Payne since November 2017. The couple exchanged wedding vows at a ceremony in Virginia. Payne is an attorney who serves for the Department of Energy. The two met at a party at the Howard Theatre in Washington, DC, and started dating in 2015. 

Lost her son to Brain Cancer

Marsh and Payne welcomed their son Blake in March 2019. But unfortunately, he passed away in April 2021 due to brain cancer at the age of two.  

Sharing the unfortunate news on Instagram, Marsh wrote she lost all the dreams and aspirations a mother had for her son. "To my dear sweet Blake aka 'Blakey', In your 25 months on earth, you taught me how much strength I had stored up in reserve that I didn't know I had. You taught me endurance. You taught me a depth of love I have never experienced. You inspired me to keep going when I wanted to give up. You helped me prioritize what is truly important in this life," she captioned.

Expressing that Blake had left a lasting impression on her life, she added, "I am forever changed because of you, my son. I feel blessed and honored to have been your mom. I wish we had more time together but I'm grateful for the time we had."