The New York Occasions has promoted veteran journalist Joseph Kahn to succeed Dean Baquet for the highest job at one of many world’s largest newsrooms.
Kahn, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and Baquet’s deputy for the previous 5 years, had been extensively anticipated to succeed him as government editor.
He’ll take over the newsroom at a time when the corporate boasts the world’s largest on-line subscriber base for information. However he’ll face a polarised viewers that has turn into distrustful of the information media, whereas pushing forth an formidable plan so as to add hundreds of thousands extra digital subscribers.
Kahn, who is thought internally to be extra reserved than Baquet, stated that securing the general public’s belief “in a time of polarisation and partisanship” was one in every of his high priorities.
The 57-year-old will take the reins on June 14, marking the tip of an eight-year tenure throughout which Baquet, the primary black editor of the NYT, oversaw protection of the rise of Donald Trump and a once-in-a-century pandemic.
“Dean has fearlessly led The Occasions via an unbelievably difficult and consequential interval,” stated AG Sulzberger, writer and chair of the NYT. Sulzberger stated Baquet would stay on the paper to “lead an thrilling new enterprise”, however didn’t present specifics.
Kahn studied at Harvard, the place he succeeded former CNN president Jeff Zucker as head of the college’s newspaper, The Crimson.
“Joe was very aloof and laborious to learn, he by no means even appeared you within the eye. However he was clearly the neatest man within the room — in a room full of individuals who thought they had been good — and a wonderful journalist,” stated a former colleague at The Crimson.
Kahn then took Mandarin courses and moved to China the place he labored for the Wall Road Journal earlier than becoming a member of the NYT in 1998. Prior to now 20 years, Kahn ascended from chief of the NYT’s Beijing bureau to managing editor in 2016. He has additionally been credited with steering the paper in direction of a extra digital-first enhancing construction.
Throughout Baquet’s tenure the New York Occasions received 18 Pulitzer Prizes and soared financially because it added hundreds of thousands of subscribers, serving to its inventory market capitalisation triple to greater than $7bn. Alongside the way in which the group broadened its scope from a newspaper to a diversified media firm, promoting subscriptions to its cooking and video games merchandise and adapting tales into documentary sequence and movies.
The corporate in February reached 10mn subscribers after the acquisition of The Athletic, a sports activities information web site. It’s aiming for 15mn subscribers by 2027.
Kahn stated: “I’m deeply humbled to guide a world newsroom of immensely gifted journalists who present unique, on-the-ground, indispensable reporting about a very powerful information of our time. The New York Occasions will proceed to play a necessary function in producing and defending impartial journalism.”
