Patrick Range McDonald is an American author and journalist.^[1] As a staff writer at L.A. Weekly, he won the Los Angeles Press Club's "Journalist of the Year" award^[2] and the "Public Service" award from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia.^[3]

McDonald also co-wrote former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's memoir, The Mayor: How I Turned Around Los Angeles after Riots, an Earthquake, and the OJ Simpson Murder Trial. The book was a New York Times and Los Angeles Times best seller.^[4][5]

And he wrote a book about Los Angeles–based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the world's largest HIV/AIDS medical-care nonprofit that operates in 45 countries and serves more than 1.6 million patients. The book is titled Righteous Rebels: AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Crusade to Change the World.^[6] In a review, The Lancet, the global health journal, noted: "McDonald has managed a deft balancing act with this book: on one hand providing a fascinating inside view of a billion-dollar non-profit organisation, while on the other hand providing a history of both the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the AIDS crisis, full of human interest and compelling portraits of the major players in the organisation."^[7]

McDonald was later the historical consultant for Keeping the Promise: AHF 30 Years,^[8] a documentary narrated by actress Meryl Streep.

He is currently the advocacy journalist for Housing Is A Human Right, the housing advocacy division of AIDS Healthcare Foundation and one of the leading housing justice organizations in the United States.^[9] His work there earned him the "Best Activism Journalism" award from the Los Angeles Press Club.^[10] In 2022, McDonald wrote a short book, Selling Off California: The Untold Story, about the powerful alliances and devastating policies that fuel the housing affordability and homelessness crises in California.^[11] It was a finalist for a Los Angeles Press Club award. He was born in Newark, New Jersey.