The Times Names Cliff Levy as Its New Metro Editor

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The New York Times said on Tuesday that Clifford J. Levy, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and a leader of the newsroom’s digital initiatives, is set to become its next metropolitan editor.

Mr. Levy, 51, has served as a deputy managing editor since 2016, overseeing The Times’s online platforms. Inside the newsroom, he is viewed as an energetic evangelist of the online-first mentality that The Times has increasingly adopted as the paper adjusts to the digital age.

His appointment signals a renewed focus by The Times on its coverage of New York City, which has shrunk in staff and scope in recent years as the paper endured layoffs and shifted its focus to national and international readers.

This will be Mr. Levy’s first time running one of the paper’s major news desks, a role commonly seen as a prerequisite for future leadership positions at The Times. In a memo on Tuesday announcing Mr. Levy’s new role, Dean Baquet, the executive editor, described the appointment as “a new opportunity for one of our finest editors, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who will be a leader of The Times for years to come.”

Mr. Levy replaces Susan Chira, a longtime Times editor who had been running the metropolitan desk on an interim basis. Ms. Chira stepped into the role after the previous metro editor, Wendell Jamieson, resigned in April following an internal investigation into workplace misconduct.

For Mr. Levy, the job is a return to familiar territory: He is a Brooklyn resident who previously served as a deputy metropolitan editor, overseeing coverage of stories like Hurricane Sandy.

As a reporter, he received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting for a series in The Times that exposed abuse of the mentally ill in state-regulated homes in New York City. As Moscow bureau chief, he shared a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 2011 with a Times colleague, Ellen Barry.

Mr. Levy belongs to a generation of Times leaders who could emerge as contenders to succeed Mr. Baquet as executive editor. Mr. Baquet turns 62 this year, and the mandatory retirement age for executive editors is 65.

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