The New York Times announces new leadership in National

Nestor Ramos

As Metro editor, Nestor Ramos has shown finely tuned news chops, outsized leadership skills and ample journalistic creativity. So skilled has he been in overseeing our report in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut that we’re tapping him to focus on the other 47 states.

Yes, Nestor is going to be our next National editor.

Nestor has run a Metro desk that has national ambitions. His stellar cast of reporters and editors has overseen Donald Trump’s criminal trials, the tumult that has followed the arrival of busloads of migrants in New York City and the ramification of our country’s deep political divide. One of Nestor’s mantras on Metro is the desire for journalism that is “fresh and relevant for New Yorkers but irresistible for readers all over the world.”

In his five years on Metro, as a criminal justice editor, a deputy and then as the department head, Nestor has left a mark. Nestor’s Metro produces up-to-the-minute live coverage during big news moments. It has published more Great Reads than any other news desk, capturing the region’s soul. And there have been a steady stream of creative visual projects. Nestor mentors, inspires and sharpens ideas into stellar prose — and he has turned his corner of the third floor of 620 into a place that seems, dare we say, fun.

Before joining The Times during the pandemic, Nestor was a reporter, columnist and editor in South Dakota, Western New York and Massachusetts. At The Boston Globe, he oversaw coverage of the pandemic, helped lead a team focused on police accountability and was a Pulitzer finalist for feature writing for a story on the effects of climate change on Cape Cod.

Monica Davey

Nestor made clear that he couldn’t do this new job without one key partner already on National. That’s why this is a double announcement. Monica Davey, who has spent 22 years on National as a correspondent and editor, is going to take on the newly created role of National managing editor. The department is becoming a larger, more complex organization — with a hub in Los Angeles, another on its way in Texas and even greater national aspirations to come — so we’re borrowing a structure now used with International. Nobody knows the country or our correspondents who cover it better than Monica, and Nestor is eager to partner with her in setting the priorities for the desk.

Please send both Nestor and Monica congratulations on their new roles. We’re now on the lookout for our next Metro editor, someone who can live up to the motto on the desk’s stylish T-shirts: “We put the New York in The New York Times.”