Neil Macdonald

Neil Macdonald (born 1957) is an award winning Canadian journalist who works for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He is currently The National's senior Washington correspondent.^[1]

Macdonald is fluent in English and French, and can speak some Arabic. His brother is comedian/actor Norm Macdonald.^{[2] [3]}

Career

After graduating from Algonquin College in Ottawa, Macdonald worked first as a print journalist. He joined the CBC in 1988 and covered Canadian Parliament for approximately a decade. He then served for five years (1998–2003) as the network's chief Middle East correspondent.

Macdonald was involved in a public dispute with Canadian media mogul Leonard Asper in 2003. Asper had accused Macdonald of being "anti-Israeli" after taking exception to some of the CBC's Middle East coverage. Macdonald responded with a rebuttal in the Globe and Mail, accusing Asper of defamation and alleging editorial censorship in the CanWest media outlets.^[4]

In November of 2010, Macdonald led a CBC investigation into the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which had been mandated with solving the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The report uncovered documents suggesting the UN investigative body had strong evidence to link the Shia paramilitary group Hezbollah to the 2005 bombing that killed Hariri, and that the UN had not acted on this intelligence due to diplomatic concerns.^[5] Macdonald's report also sharply criticized the performance of the Special Tribunal's head prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, who responded that he was "extremely disappointed" with the report.^[6]

Awards

In 2004, Macdonald received a Gemini Award for his reportage on political violence in Haiti. He was awarded a second "best reportage" Gemini in 2009 for his coverage of the U.S. economic crisis.^[7]

References