The McGill Report

The McGill Report is a journalistic experiment in global citizenship and journalism ethics. Each article offers a case study that concretely, usefully illuminates the normally invisible strands of mutual influence connecting a particular town, city or region to the rest of the world.

Also, I try to practice my craft in a way that helps to illuminate the moral underpinnings of journalism and to foster meaningful connections between our local communities and the wider world.

I have worked for ten years as a staff reporter at The New York Times, and for four years as a bureau chief in the London and Hong Kong bureaus of Bloomberg News. Since 2000, I have lived in my home town of Rochester, Minnesota, where my journalism focuses on describing the social, cultural, economic and environmental connections that link southeastern Minnesota to the world.

Parallel to my journalism, I also publish occasional essays on journalism ethics. I write these for a general audience, trying to explain to ordinary citizens the methods, practices and ethics that professional journalists follow. Very often, limitations and paradoxes that I feel are imposed on journalists by its traditional professional ethics are my main interest.

In 2005, I explained my "glocal" journalism to Bob Garfield on NPR's "On the Media" program. My journalism from southern Minnesota is collected in my 2006 book called "Here: A Global Citizen's Journey" My essays on journalism ethics are collected on The McGill Report and at a blog called The Journalist and the Buddha.

From 2003 to 2008, I taught journalism and media ethics at the University of St. Thomas. In 2004 I taught a course in "The Role of the Media in Public Affairs" at the Hubert Humphrey Institute Public Affairs in Minneapolis. In the fall of 2009 I started writing a weekly online column, Talking With Strangers, about refugees living in Minnesota, especially those from Horn of Africa countries and Iraq. In the fall of 2008 and again this fall I am teaching a course in journalism practice and ethics, "Truth vs. Power: A Journey in Journalism," at Carleton College in Northfield, MN.

Email: doug@mcgillreport.org

Phone: 507-398-2182