AP names new financial markets editor

Associated Press business editor Hal Ritter sent out the following announcement about Erin McClam to the staff on Tuesday:

It’s a pleasure to announce that Erin will be joining Business News as financial markets editor. He’ll start Jan. 3. Most of you have worked with Erin in his role as Top Stories Desk editor the past four years. Since April 2010, he has been based in our department and worked almost exclusively on business and financial stories. He has been involved with every reporting team and has done an outstanding job helping shape stories for page-one readers.

In his new role, Erin will work with Seth Sutel and the markets and banking reporters to cover the news and deliver the enterprise readers need to understand the markets and manage their money.

For those who don’t know his background, Erin joined the AP right out of the University of Georgia, where he earned a journalism degree in 1999. He worked in the Atlanta bureau for three years and came to New York in 2002 as a reporter in the City bureau. He covered white-collar crime and the courts (WorldCom, Tyco, Martha Stewart) for three years and was named a national writer in 2005. He joined the Top Stories Desk as an editor when the desk was established in January 2008.

Please join me in congratulating Erin on this promotion and welcoming him as an official member of the department.