Jill Abramson, managing editor and former Washington bureau chief at the New York Times, is taking the executive editor job of Bill Keller on Sept. 6. 

Keller, 62, who ran the NYT’s newsroom for the last eight years, will become a full-time writer for the New York Times Magazine and the paper’s news and opinion page.

Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the NYT, accepted Keller’s decision to step down with “mixed emotions.” He’s happy that Keller is remaining at the paper so staffers can “benefit from his solid judgment, wisdom and insights” and readers will hear his “powerful voice on a wide range of issues,” according to Sulzberger’s statement.

Abramson, 57, called her new post a “dream job for any journalist.” She joined the NYT in 1997 from the Wall Street Journal, where she was deputy D.C. bureau chief. Earlier she edited Legal Times.

Dean Baquet, 54, assistant managing editor and D.C. Washington bureau chief since 2007, succeeds Abramson. He was national editor at the NYT, but left for the Los Angeles Times in 2000 for the managing editor post.

He became editor of the paper in 2005, leaving over a dispute about cutbacks.