WHYY reporter Tom MacDonald is a lifelong Philadelphia-area resident who has worked in the region since the mid-1980s. Tom started in commercial radio covering the MOVE standoff with police for WFIL-AM. He was also City Hall Bureau Chief, covering government and politics for more than a decade, for WWDB-FM.
Tom has been heard on numerous stations in the region during the decade he worked for Metro Traffic, doing news, traffic, and weather.
Tom has also been heard nationally, filing reports for NPR, ABC News Radio, NBC Radio, and CBS Radio.
He has won the Associated Press award for his coverage of the protests of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and a Religious Communicators award for a post-9/11 documentary he did with the late Peter Jennings.
More from the Contributor
City Council now has fallback plan if Harrisburg doesn’t come through for Philly schools
Philadelphia City Council has added a fallback position to ensure sales tax money does go to the city’s school district. The ...
11 years ago
Listen
Philadelphia Controller says L &I not doing a good job on demolition inspections
Philadelphia’s City Controller says the oversight of demolitions in the city has not gotten any better since last summer’s de ...
11 years ago
Listen
City Hall Veterans Fair brings big turnout
Veterans organizations and others joined together in Philadelphia to offer a big thank you to former soldiers. Offering ever ...
11 years ago
Listen
City Council and Philly SRC no closer to funding deal
City Council and the Philadelphia School District are jousting over options to fund public schools if a cigarette tax proposal fails to w ...
11 years ago
Listen
Busy day for getting a marriage license in Philly
Philadelphia’s Marriage License Bureau is much busier than usual now that same-sex marriage is legal in Pennsylvania. The bu ...
11 years ago
Listen
Easy victory for Neilson in open Philly City Council race
As expected, the Democratic candidate won the special election for an at-large seat in Philadelphia City Council. Since his party ...
11 years ago
Listen
Boyle beats Margolies, rest of crowd for Democratic nomination
Youth, a grass-roots campaign and lots of union backing triumphed last night in the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 13th Congr ...
11 years ago
Listen
Christie wants to slash N.J. pension payment to fill $800 million budget hole
Faced with an $800 million budget shortfall, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he will plug the hole by cutting a promised pension paym ...
11 years ago
Listen
PUC putting PECO on notice about giving customers faulty info on outages
Pennsylvania’s Public Utilities Commission says Febuary’s ice storm proves PECO energy needs to do a better job of telling cu ...
11 years ago
Listen
Veterans Court graduates its 6th class, giving those who served a second chance
There was a graduation in Philadelphia Monday that did not come from an institution of higher learning. It came from within the criminal- ...
11 years ago
Listen
On eve of ticket-fixing trial, more reforms for Philly traffic court
Jury selection is scheduled to start this week in the corruption trial of six former Philadelphia Traffic Court Judges for the ticket-fix ...
11 years ago
A Shore rarity: Wildwood opening dog beach
A portion of Wildwood, New Jersey is going to the dogs….and cats. Most beaches on the Jersey Shore are off-limits to d ...
11 years ago
Listen