Pate McMichael

Pate McMichael is the author of Klandestine: How a Klan Lawyer and a Checkbook Journalist Helped James Earl Ray Cover Up His Crime (Chicago Review Press, 2015) and Operation Chrysler: The Greatest Murder Mystery of World War II (2019).

Pate's work has been anthologized in Words Matter (University of Missouri Press, 2016) and The Bitter Southerner Reader, Vol. 3 (2019). For more than 20 years, he has worked as a freelance journalist, publishing long-form narratives in Atlanta Magazine, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Bitter Southerner, Zocalo Public Square, Lake Oconee Living, Georgia Backroads, Athens Magazine, and St. Louis Magazine. He interned with The Brownsville Herald on the U.S.-Mexico border and also worked as a student reporter for the Columbia Missourian and Vox magazine.

Pate has taught journalism at Georgia College, a public liberal arts university, California State University, Chico, where he advised the student newspaper, The Orion. His students received national, regional, and statewide recognition during his tenure. From 2023-2024, Pate served as the associate director of the The University of Arizona School of Journalism.

Currently, Pate's the director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition and an instructor at Elon University.