Tabloid wars: ex-News of the World editor Colin Myler named editor of Daily News, setting up showdown with the Post

In a surprise move, Colin Myler, former editor of News Corp.'s defunct News of the World, has been named editor-in-chief of the New York Daily News, adding some fuel to what's already a bitter rivalry between the Daily News and the New York Post. Myler replaces the paper's current editor Kevin Convey, whose tenure as editor lasted just a year and a half.

Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman announced the change in a memo to staffers on Wednesday.

"The New York Daily News is a great institution of American journalism which will only get better under the leadership of Colin," Zuckerman said.

Myler, who once served as executive editor of the Post, was at the helm of New of the World when Rupert Murdoch and co. decided to shut the paper down in July in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that rocked England.

"I am immensely proud and honored to be leading one of America's great newspapers into a new era," Myler said in the memo. His appointment is effective Jan. 10.

In September, Myler told the Parliamentary committee investigating the phone-hacking claims that he was uncomfortable with the Murdochs' assertion that the practice was limited to one "rogue" reporter.

"I felt there could have been bombs under the newsroom floor," Myler said, "but I didn't know where they were and when they were going to go off."

With a print circulation of 605,677, the Daily News is New York's largest daily. The Post, at 512,067, is number two.

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