We have tasked Phil with taking our extraordinary global operation to the next level in his new role. And he won’t be doing it alone. Our international editor, Greg Winter, is a fantastic journalist to partner with. Like Michael, he deserves credit for the department’s achievements in recent years, having been involved in all aspects of reporting, including guiding some of the department’s most impactful and ambitious undertakings. He will also work closely with our Asia and Europe editors, Adrian Carter and Jim Yardley, who have tackled and overcome a seemingly endless series of journalistic challenges while leading our Seoul and London newsrooms through a period of dizzying growth. And we know that Phil and Greg have big plans to bring even more talent to an already talented department.
Our international department excels in breaking news, enterprise reporting, investigative reporting and visual reporting, and that will continue to be the case. But it also has a special role in The New York Times’ long-term ambitions. It’s at the forefront of the editorial department’s digital transformation, and its success is central to our subscription strategy, as evidenced by the more than 1 million readers who live outside the U.S. and pay for our stories. We are an American news organization, but we are also an international organization. We are a newspaper and a website, but we are also more. Phil understands all these tensions better than anyone, and I look forward to him helping us define what The Times should be for our readers around the world.
We are fortunate that Phil has risen to the challenge as weekend editor for the past three years. Working closely with deputy editor Ian Tronz, he has served in the strangest tenure of any weekend editor in the history of The Times: a tenure that was almost entirely remote. It wasn’t easy to keep up the conflicting pressures at the desk when we were all gathered at 620 Eighth Avenue as the weekend approached. But Phil, setting up his desk in the hallway of his apartment, got it done week after week, always with an emphasis on collaboration and the highest standards. He was a steady hand through a brutal news cycle, anchoring our weekend reporting for the print and online editions on countless big stories, including the pandemic, a memorable Sunday edition that marked one dark juncture after another, the chaotic final year of President Trump’s presidency and the 2020 election, the end of the Afghanistan war and the beginning of the Ukraine war.
Prior to joining The New York Times in 2011, Phil served as Moscow and Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post and is the author of the award-winning book, From Mao’s Shadow: The Battle for the Soul of New China. As The New York Times’ Beijing bureau chief, he was the founding editor of the Chinese-language website and, as Asia editor, transformed the Hong Kong newsroom into a regional reporting and editing hub that later relocated to Seoul. He has also been a champion for China correspondents, championing hard-hitting reporting, including reporting on Beijing’s covert efforts to oppress millions of Muslims through labor camps, atrocities and surveillance systems that were finalists for a Pulitzer Prize in 2020.
We’ll have more to share with you about our International Desk leadership team and our weekend coverage in the coming days, but for now, let’s congratulate Phil.
– Joe, Mark and Carolyn
