Gena Asher | Sept. 9, 2009
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McDowell was named the Asia-Pacific editor for the Associated Press in 2004. He is based in Bangkok, Thailand, and oversees the AP report in a swath of territory stretching from Afghanistan to Japan and Australia.
“Patrick is based in Bangkok, so we’re fortunate to catch him during a rare trip to the U.S.,” said Joe Coleman, Roy W. Howard Professional-in-Residence, who was AP chief in Tokyo before joining the School of Journalism last year. “The timing is fortuitous as well, since he’s coming to IU just as the AP is embroiled in an emotional debate over the release of a photo of a U.S. Marine being killed in Afghanistan, part of Patrick’s territory as Asia-Pacific editor. I expect he’ll give students an eye-opening view into the kinds of ethical questions and government pressure journalists encounter every day in the field.”
A California native, McDowell worked at a small daily newspaper in the Bay area before going to London in 1988. He reported for the AP in London, moved to Paris in 1989 and joined the bureau in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1995.
He moved to Asia in 1996 as news editor in the Bangkok bureau. McDowell was named bureau chief in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2000 and served there four years before moving back to Bangkok.
He’s has reported from about 20 countries around the world, and helped cover the the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Rwanda genocide, post-apartheid South Africa, the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, strife in East Timor and the 2003 Bali bombing.
As Asia-Pacific editor, McDowell supervised the report in the Asian tsunami in 2004, for which the AP won National Deadliner and APME awards for deadline/spot reporting.
He is a graduate of the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., and has a master’s degree in international journalism from City University, London.
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