The New York Times on Tuesday announced the appointment of veteran journalist Joe Kahn as its next executive editor, the top newsroom position at the powerful US paper.
Kahn — currently the Times’s number two-ranked editor — will succeed Dean Baquet, whose eight-year reign is due to end in June, the daily said.
The 57-year-old will be tasked with shaping the digital future of the Times, a leading liberal voice in world journalism, as it vies for audiences around the globe.
Kahn said securing readers’ trust “in a time of polarization and partisanship” was one of his top priorities.
“We don’t know where the political zeitgeist will move over time,” the Times quoted Kahn as saying.
“Rather than chase that, we want to commit and recommit to being independent,” he said.
Kahn has been managing editor of the Times since 2016 and has been credited with helping guide the paper into the digital era.
In recent years the Times has moved heavily into podcasts and TV documentaries, while its games section is another key source of revenue.
Kahn previously led the Times’s international coverage and in 2006 shared a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in China.
Baquet was the first Black executive editor of the Times and his tenure brought 18 Pulitzer Prizes.
He oversaw hard-hitting expose pieces on Donald Trump’s finances and the sexual misconduct of disgraced former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
But he also grappled with controversies, including an internal investigation which found that the paper’s award-winning podcast “Caliphate” had failed to meet editorial standards.
The Times said Baquet has reached the age when Times executive editors usually step down: 65. The paper said he would stay on “to lead an exciting new venture.”
