James Macdonell (1841 – 2 March 1879) was a Scottish journalist.

Macdonell was born at Dyce near Aberdeen. In 1858, after his father's death, he became clerk in a merchant's office. He began writing in the Aberdeen Free Press; in 1862 he was appointed to the staff of the Daily Review in Edinburgh, and at 22 he became editor of the Northern Daily Express.^[1]

In 1865 Macdonell went to London with a staff position on the Daily Telegraph, which he held until 1875, as special correspondent in France in 1870 and 1871. In 1873 he became a leader-writer on The Times. He died in London on 2 March 1879. His posthumous France since the First Empire, though incomplete, gave insights into the French politics of his time.^[1]