The New York Times has reported that Jill Abramson, currently the paper’s managing editor, will succeed Bill Keller as executive editor on September 6. Keller will become a full time writer for the Times.
Abramson has served as managing editor for the paper since 2003. She arrived at the Times from The Wall Street Journal in 1997, and in 2000 she was named Washington bureau chief. Abramson said stepping into the top job at the paper was like “ascending to Valhalla.”
She will be the first woman editor in the Times’ history.
Keller became executive editor in 2003, after the previous editor, Howell Raines, was forced out in the wake of the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher and chairman of The New York Times Company, said he accepted Keller’s resignation with “mixed emotions.” According to the Times, Keller is still “working out the details of a column he will write for the paper’s new Sunday opinion section.”
In addition, Dean Baquet, currently Washington bureau chief, will become the Times’ new managing editor.
