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

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.

His posthumous France since the First Empire, though incomplete, gave insights into the French politics of his time.