A native Detroiter, McGraw worked for 37 years at The Detroit Free Press, where he served as a freelance writer, city desk reporter, sports writer, deputy metro editor, foreign correspondent, columnist and blogger. His writing also appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Toronto Globe and Mail, Newsweek, the London-based History Workshop Journal, the Fifth Estate and Orbit. He founded the Droog Press and taught journalism at Wayne State University, the University of Michigan-Dearborn and Oakland University.