O’Donnell named Dallas Morning News biz editor

Paul O’Donnell, the editor of the Dallas Business Journal, has been named business editor of the Dallas Morning News.

He replaces Dennis Fulton, who accepted the newspaper’s buyout offer.

O’Donnell had been editor of the weekly business newspaper since March 2014, when he left the Morning News.

O’Donnell joined the News in 2009 as an assistant business editor leading coverage of the economy, technology, retailing, the food and hospitality industries and small business.

A year later, he became the founding editor of the News’ flagship iPad app, which was among the first newspaper apps in Apple’s app store. The app went on to achieve financial and audience success, with more than 100,000 downloads and nearly 6 million page a views a month at its peak.

In October 2013, he began leading efforts to incorporate interactive storytelling on Dallasnews.com. His work has ranged from development of special web pages for major projects such as West and Profiting Off the Poor to the creation of digital display packages for special coverage such as Deadly Affection and How the Texas Testing Bubble Popped.

At the beginning of 2014, he worked with The News’ business staff to boost its online presence. The section’s page views rose more than 48% and unique visitors nearly doubled.

Before moving to Dallas, he had a highly acclaimed career in Cleveland, where he served in several key editing roles, including business editor.

During his four years as business editor, The Plain Dealer’s staff won multiple national and state reporting awards for its coverage of such topics as energy dependency and the retirement conundrum facing many workers today. His Business section also was twice recognized as being among the best in the country.

Earlier in his career, he was executive editor of a 50,000-circulation daily in suburban Cleveland and a reporter covering everything from courts and crime to education and national politics.