E-mail: mary.macdonald@patch.com
Phone: 508-317-6136
Hometown: Hampton, NH
Position: Local Editor, Milford Patch

Mary started her 20-year reporting career in New England, initially at the Vineyard Gazette on Martha's Vineyard, and later Foster's Daily Democrat in southern New Hampshire, where she covered local news in Rochester and Portsmouth, as well as in York, Maine.  She left her native New Hampshire for a job as a police reporter at The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville.

After covering police, government and higher ed in Jacksonville, she moved to Atlanta to become a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She specialized in education reporting for most of her nine years in Atlanta, later moving to general assignment, where she wrote news and feature stories from Atlanta's northern suburbs.

In 2009, Mary left the Atlanta paper to go to grad school, thinking she would like to try teaching. She taught English in Springfield (MA) for nearly two years, and has a master's degree in secondary education from University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

When she's not working, Mary enjoys cooking, running, hiking and spending time with her family in Rhode Island. 

Beliefs

At Patch, we promise always to report the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adhere to the principles of good journalism. However, we also acknowledge that true impartiality is impossible because human beings have beliefs. So in the spirit of simple honesty, our policy is to encourage our editors to reveal their beliefs to the extent they feel comfortable. This disclosure is not a license for writers to inject beliefs into stories or to dictate coverage according to them. In fact, the intent is the opposite: we hope that the knowledge that our beliefs are on the record will cause us to be ever mindful of writing, reporting and editing in a fair, balanced way. And if you ever see evidence that we failed in this mission, please let us know.

Politics

I am a registered Democrat who occasionally crosses over and votes Republican. I follow the issues most important to me, typically crime and education. 

Religion

I'm not particularly religious. I was raised a Catholic but am not observant.