Tim McNulty has been a staff writer for the Post-Gazette since 1996, when he joined the paper's Washington, D.C., bureau during the 1996 presidential run, and currently covers cultural arts and pop culture. A Highland Park native, he returned to Pittsburgh to be a night-desk cops reporter and then a city government reporter, ultimately covering former Mayor Tom Murphy's administration -- including his political battles with the late Bob O'Connor and Pittsburgh's near-bankruptcy -- for seven years. Since joining the Features department in 2005, he has written about the rise of digital music, video games and the Web, the economic impacts of the arts, Hurricane Katrina, and Pittsburgh's museums, theaters and artists, and their advocates. Before joining the Post-Gazette, McNulty had stints as