NPR’s Terence Samuel has been named editor-in-chief of USA Today

Terence Samuel, top news manager at National Public Radio, will be the new editor-in-chief of USA Today.

Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper chain and publisher of USA Today, announced this on Friday. Mr. Samuel, who starts July 10, fills a vacancy that became vacant in May by Nicole Carollwhich had led USA Today for five years.

Mr. Samuel, 61, is vice president and executive editor at NPR, where he oversees all newsgathering on the network. Prior to joining NPR in 2017, he was deputy national political editor at The Washington Post and also worked at The Root, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and U.S. News & World Report.

Mr. Samuel said in a statement that he was honored to help lead USA Today, which debuted in 1982, “towards a digital future.”

“USA Today has a distinctive and pioneering history in American journalism and is uniquely positioned to inform the conversations and tell the stories that impact American life,” he said.

Kristin Roberts, Chief Content Officer of Gannett, said Mr. Samuel would “accelerate our transformation of USA Today, embracing our role and our roots as an American newspaper with a core mission of being nothing short of essential to the readers, viewers and listeners that we serve across the country. .”

In an email to NPR staff on Friday, Edith Chapin, the interim senior vice president for news, said the network would conduct a national search to find his replacement.

Mr. Samuel joins Gannett at a dangerous time. The company, which has struggled with debt following its 2019 merger with GateHouse Media, has faced multiple rounds of layoffs in recent years. The share price has fallen by nearly 70 percent since the merger.

Hundreds of journalists from about two dozen Gannett newsrooms plan to walk out Monday at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in protest at the executive leadership.