Joseph Kahn has been named as the next executive editor at the New York Times. Mr Kahn will be succeeding Dean Baquet, whose eight-year tenure will conclude in June.

The announcement was made on Tuesday by the publisher of The Times and chairman of The New York Times Company, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger. 

“For many people, especially those who have worked alongside Joe — a brilliant journalist and a brave and principled leader — this announcement will come as no surprise,” Mr Sulzberger wrote to the Times staff.

“Joe brings impeccable news judgment, a sophisticated understanding of the forces shaping the world and a long track record of helping journalists produce their most ambitious and courageous work,” he added.

In response, Mr Kahn noted that gaining the trust of the public “in a time of polarisation and partisanship” was among his top priorities.

“We don’t know where the political zeitgeist will move over time,” Mr Kahn said in an interview. “Rather than chase that, we want to commit and recommit to being independent.”

Mr Kahn, who had served as managing editor in 2016, will be inheriting a staff strength of about 1,700 employees, the largest in The Times’s 171-year history.  

Mr Kahn’s career began at the Wall Street Journal and the Dallas Morning News; here he won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories about violence against women along with his team. 

Mr Kahn joined The Times in 1998 and served as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief in China, sharing in a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on China’s faulty legal system.

In 2012, he directed a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the hidden fortune of China’s ruling elite, provoking China authorities to block access to The Times’s website and evict some of its journalists from the country.