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. I’m currently a reporter and audience engagement specialist 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 May 2025, me and my colleagues were awarded two Peter Lisagor Awards by the Chicago Headline Club for our investigation into the struggles Black seniors in Chicago face trying to obtain home improvement loans and build generational wealth. We won awards for Best Business Reporting: Small Print/Online and Best Race and Diversity Reporting: Small Print/ Online.
Before joining the Investigative Project, I was the InPathways Community Reporting Intern for Borderless Magazine, which provides news to and about immigrant communities in and around Chicago.
I was also 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.
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.
I’ve also reported extensively for Block Club Chicago, where I became an intern in the summer of 2021, and later transitioned to freelance reporting in September 2023.
There, I’ve reported on Chicago’s under-covered Roseland and Pullman neighborhoods, and worked on feature stories and profiles, and covered community events, elections, small business openings, breaking news, and more.
I’ve also freelanced 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); art; animation; video games; media and Black culture; collecting knick-knacks, vintage toys, and vinyl records; going to the movie theater; and art journaling.
If you want to hear about my interests and creative ventures outside of journalism, look out for my forthcoming project maia✮pink (maia.pink), where I’ll talk more about them!
Thanks for being here!