Hrach received his undergraduate degree in history from the University of Michigan in 1985, and he earned a master’s degree in news journalism from Kent State University in 1990. He completed his doctorate degree in mass communication from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in 2008. He is a former editor and reporter at The Marietta Times in Marietta, Ohio. Hrach researches journalism history with a focus on the 1950s and 1960s. His most recent publication is The Riot Report and the News: How the Kerner Commission Changed Media Coverage of Black America. The book was published in September 2016 by the University of Massachusetts Press.