USA Today hires Maltais to lead retail, food and personal tech coverage

Michelle Maltais has joined the USA Today Money staff as its consumer editor.

Maltais is based in the Los Angeles bureau and is leading a newly formed team focused on retail, food, and personal technology.

She previously spent 20 years at the Los Angeles Times. She was most recently deputy director of audience engagement, a team that was focused not only on social media platforms but also on creating stories that resonate with online audiences. She was a member of the team that won a Pulitzer for breaking news coverage of the San Bernardino terrorist attack.

Maltais began her tenure at the Times in 1997 as a copy editor, primarily in business, eventually becoming the business web deputy. Among her varied experiences at the Times, she produced a business radio program, wrote and edited tech coverage, and produced multimedia content for latimes.com.

Maltais earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in English from Scripps College in Claremont, California.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.