USA Today hires Mullaney to cover economy

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Tim Mullaney, a former reporter for BusinessWeek and Bloomberg News, has been hired by USA Today to cover the economy.

Mullaney, who has been freelancing for USA Today in the past few months, will start his new job on Dec. 19.

Mullaney will play a lead role in covering Europe’s debt crisis and international economics, as well as credit and its implications in the United States. He will also write about the relationship between innovation and growth.

“The interesting thing is that USAT is organized to present economic and political coverage pretty seamlessly,” said Mullaney in an e-mail. “And I have some background in thinking and writing about capital markets. Then you throw in USAT’s brand image and the going-in idea is to find stories that illustrate how K Street, Wall Street and Main Street all fit together and affect each other.”

Mullaney graded from Catholic University with a degree in politics. He also as a journalism degree from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and a law degree from the University of Maryland.

He was the E-Business editor at BusinessWeek from 1999 to 2006 and then worked for Bloomberg for three-plus years covering media companies, IPOs and leveraged buyouts.

His freelance work for USA Today has spanned from Occupy Wall Street to trade and taxes to Europe’s debt crisis and the impressive stock market returns of technology companies targeted by the stimulus.