Joseph Kahn Appointed New York Times Editor-in-Chief

The New York Times has named a former China correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner with a quarter-century of experience at the company as its new editor-in-chief.

Beginning in June, Joe Kahn, 57, is set to succeed Dean Baquet, 65, whose eight-year tenure ends. This was announced by the “New York Times” on Tuesday in New York. Kahn will in future lead an editorial office with around 1,700 employees, it said – the largest in the history of the newspaper, which was founded in 1851.

Kahn has served as managing editor since 2016, the second most important position on the Times editorial board after Baquet, a role reinstated at the time after a hiatus. During this time, the title was further developed into a wide range of podcasts, video formats and games.

In addition to day-to-day business, Kahn helped shape the growing importance of online activities, away from the traditional business of a daily newspaper. According to the “Times.” he drove, among other things, the expansion of breaking news reporting, image offerings and the international expansion of the title.

Kahn studied American history at the elite Harvard University and began reporting from Beijing in the late 1980s. In 1994, he won his first Pulitzer Prize, the world’s most prestigious journalistic award, for the Dallas Morning News as part of a team covering global violence against women. He joined The New York Times in 1998 and shared his second Pulitzer Prize with Jim Yardley in 2006 for his coverage of the country’s justice system. In 2008 he returned to New York from Asia.

Baquet had been the first black man to edit the New York Times for eight years, succeeding Jill Abramson, the first woman to fill the role. During his tenure, among other things, the expansion from around 966,000 digital subscribers at the beginning of 2014 to currently around ten million subscriptions – many of them also for offers such as NYT crossword puzzles or cooking recipes.

According to the newspaper, Kahn is regarded internally as one of Baquet’s closest confidants. He initially gave no information about further career plans.

Image Sources

  • The New York Times: Pexels