Donald Macdonald (journalist)
Donald Alaster Macdonald (6 June 1859 – 23 November 1932) was an Australian journalist and nature writer, writing under the pen names including 'Observer' and 'Gnuyang' (gossip). He was considered one of Australia's widely known journalists, and is in the Melbourne Press Club's Australian Media Hall of Fame. He was credited with making 'Australian natural history and botany popular interests'. Early life Macdonald was born in Fitzroy, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne, the elder son of Donald Macdonald (of Scottish–Canadian heritage) and his wife Margaret, née Harris. Macdonald was educated at the Keilor state school where he became a pupil-teacher in 1876. He later joined The Corowa Free Press and then the Melbourne Argus newspaper in 1881. On 26 February 1883 at Scots' Church, Melbourne, Macdonald married Jessie Seward in 1883. Seward was from a pioneering family of the Victorian Rochester area. Their only daughter (J)essie Elaine (1885–2 July 1948), married in 1910 to James Service Northam Whittle, also became a traveller and free lance journalist (writing under the pen name 'Taunton Vale'). Career Writing under the pen name 'Observer', Macdonald established himself as a cricket and Australia rules football commentator. Macdonald "completely revolutionized cricket reporting" — he made the