MAIA MCDONALD
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MAIA MCDONALD ✿
Who is Maia McDonald?
Hi, I’m Maia! Thanks for asking!
I’m a Chicago-based freelance journalist with skills in writing, photography, and video and audio editing. I’m currently doing investigations, visual journalism, and audience engagement with the Investigative Project on Race and Equity—you can email me at maia@raceandequityproject.org—and serve as a board member for the Chicago Journalists Association.
In 2018, I received my Bachelor of Journalism in Radio-TV Reporting and Anchoring, also known as Broadcast Journalism, from the University of Missouri-Columbia. There, I worked as a general assignment reporter for the local NBC affiliate news station, KOMU-8 News, which has a coverage area of about 150,000 families in Mid-Missouri.
After moving back to Chicago, I reported for Free Spirit Media’s The Real Chi, where I was an Environmental Health and Wellness reporter and editor for more than two years.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, it was a tough time for me and my family, leading me to take a break from reporting. But I was able to bounce back with an internship at Block Club Chicago in the summer of 2021.
At Block Club Chicago, I was an intern for more than a year before becoming a freelance reporter in September 2023. There, I’ve extensively reported on Chicago’s under-reported Roseland and Pullman neighborhoods, as well as worked on feature stories and profiles, and covered community events, elections, small business openings, breaking news and more.
I was a Civic Reporting Fellow at City Bureau, a civic journalism lab on Chicago’s South Side, in Fall 2022, writing about the Illinois temporary service industry and learning about investigative journalism, and a 2023 FOIA Fest Boot Camp Cohort Member.
Recently, I was the InPathways Community Reporting Intern for Borderless Magazine, an online news source that focuses on the immigrant community in and around Chicago. Right now, I’m freelance reporting for Borderless Magazine, working on some long-form reporting projects that will be out in the future.
I’ve also freelance reported for The TRiiBE and Austin Weekly News, both of which aim to provide news to Chicago’s Black residents living on the West Side, the U.S. edition of The Guardian, and In These Times, a digital news outlet that covers labor and social movements.
Some of my work has been republished by local and non-local outlets, including Cicero Independienté, Chalkbeat Chicago, the Chicago Reader, Grist, Sahan Journal, Wisconsin Watch, and others.
I have aspirations to help create an independent Chicago multimedia journalism outlet that can provide digital news AND video journalism outside of the city’s highly respected legacy television news stations.
For now, I’m freelance reporting and looking for other news outlets to work with. If you think that may be you and your newsroom, don’t hesitate to reach out to me!
When I’m not reporting, I love exploring fashion (I’m a lover of pink, if you couldn’t already tell), reading about art, animation, video games, media, and Black culture, collecting knickknacks, vintage toys, and vinyl records, going to the movie theater with my sister, and art journaling.
If you want to hear about my non-journalism interests and creative ventures, look out for my forthcoming project maia✮pink (maia.pink), where I’ll talk more about them!
Thanks for being here!