Former WSJ reporter McDonald has died

Ian McDonald, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal’s Money & Investing section from March 2001 to October 2007, died last week after battling colon cancer.

He was 47.

McDonald covered the mutual-fund industry, writing the Fund Fiend and Seven Questions columns for the Online Journal. He once had two Page One lead stories on the same day in 2005 and wrote a popular A-hed in 2007 with Alistair MacDonald about a baggage handler who became famous for attacking a would-be terrorist.

Prior to joining the Journal, Ian was a reporter and columnist with TheStreet.com.

Before then, he worked in the fund business for several years. Ian was named to The Journalist and Financial Reporter’s list of 30 Top Journalists Under 30 in 2001, and won the New York State Society of CPAs Award for Excellence in Financial Journalism in 2000.

His first job in journalism was with the Cape Cod Times when he was 15.

He left the Journal to become a buy-side equity analyst at T. Rowe Price.

A native of Brewster, Massachusetts, McDonald held a BA in English from Bates College.