Glasser, Post's Outlook Section Editor, to Manage Coverage of National News

Susan B. Glasser, a Washington Post editor, political reporter and foreign correspondent, has been named assistant managing editor for national news, the paper announced yesterday.

Glasser, 37, who has been editor of The Post's Outlook section since January, will direct coverage of American politics, Congress and the executive branch, national security, science and the environment, as well as the paper's seven news bureaus throughout the United States.

"Susan is one of our most talented and visionary journalists, with deep experience in coverage of politics, government accountability, national security and foreign affairs, all of which are core subjects of our national coverage," Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said.

Downie and Managing Editor Philip Bennett announced the appointment.

Glasser assumes leadership of a 75-member staff at a dramatic moment in the nation's political history, with Democrats taking control of Congress for the first time in 12 years and a presidential campaign looming in 2008. She succeeds Liz Spayd, who was named editor of washingtonpost.com in October.

Glasser's appointment also comes during a challenging period for the paper. This week, two of The Post's prominent political journalists, John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei, said they were leaving the paper to join an online venture. Amid growing competition from the Internet and other news sources, The Post plans to broaden its political coverage on the Web and in other media.

In their memo, Downie and Bennett praised Glasser's "transforming journalistic vision" in leading Outlook for the past 11 months. "We expect her to be similarly innovative in leading the National staff at a time of great opportunity and challenge," they said.

Glasser joined The Post in 1998 as deputy national editor for investigations after serving as editor of Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Congress. She helped to direct The Post's coverage of the Monica Lewinsky investigation and the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

She then served for nearly four years as co-bureau chief in Moscow with her husband, Peter Baker, and was a war correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition to her time in Moscow, as a reporter for the national staff she wrote about money and politics, terrorism and the launch of the Department of Homeland Security.

In 2005, she and Baker wrote a book, "Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution." Baker, who covers the White House for The Post, will report to assistant managing editor for enterprise William Hamilton, who is the acting politics editor.

Glasser will assume her new duties Dec. 4.

"I think this is a moment of great opportunity for The Post to take its political coverage in the 2008 campaign to a new level, both on the Internet and in the paper," she said. "I see this as a moment of great challenge."