Marcus Brauchli, who in April resigned as managing editor of the Wall Street Journal after Rupert Murdoch took control of the newspaper, will be the new executive editor of the Washington Post.

The Washington Post said this afternoon that the paper's new publisher, Katharine Weymouth, named the 47-year-old Brauchli, to succeed executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. She will formally introduce him to the newsroom on Tuesday morning.

The choice is a break from tradition at the newspaper, which had promoted from within in the past. Downie, who has spent virtually his entire career at the Post, succeeded legendary executive editor Ben Bradlee in 1991. 

Brauchli was identified as the leading candidate for the job last week by Portfolio.com blogger Jeff Bercovici. 

"Marcus brings a tremendous wealth of experience, both as a journalist and as an editor, that will help us navigate the new world of media—honoring and building on the standards of journalism blazed by Ben Bradlee and Len Downie—and move us forward to a new and bright future," Weymouth said in a statement.

"Marcus has the ability to think strategically about our newsroom, about how to realign our resources in a way that is consistent with what readers want and expect and maintain the Post's first-rate journalism," Weymouth added.

Aside from cutting newsroom costs and staff, a painful process begun under his predecessor, one of Brauchli's bigger challenges will be to better integrate the Post's long-independent website with the newspaper.

He was tackling the same issue at the Journal before Murdoch made it clear he wanted his own people in charge.

Brauchli, who has been working as a consultant for Murdoch's News Corp., received a severance package estimated at between $3 million and $5 million, and has been subject to criticism for not resisting the new owner's plans.

Both WashingtonPost.com and the ink-on-paper news operation will report to Brauchli. It was unclear whether the newspaper’s current managing editor, Philip Bennett, would stay on in his current role. Bennett had been a candidate for the executive editor position.

Weymouth, 42, a granddaughter of the late Post publisher Katharine Graham and a niece of Washington Post Co. chief executive Donald Graham, became publisher in February.

She took the reins at a difficult time for newspapers generally and the Post in particular. Circulation is dropping and advertising revenue is plummeting as the internet becomes more dominant as a disseminator of news and information.

Trained as a lawyer and representing the fourth generation of her family to run the Post, Weymouth quickly began the search for her own top editor to reinvent the newspaper of the 21st century—a choice as risky as it is important to her success as publisher—and made her decision with surprising speed.

"In my mind, it's three different qualities," she said in an interview for an upcoming issue of Condé Nast Portfolio.

"One is obviously intellectual caliber—the ability to run our newsroom and identify good stories," Weymouth said. "Two is charisma and leadership. Len has his own charisma—you have to have somebody who's identified as a leader, has the ability to inspire people to want to do great work. And the third is the ability to think strategically about the newsroom of the 21st century."

Weymouth continued: "There has to be someone who looks around and says, Okay, what are we trying to accomplish? Now we have the Web, we have mobile, we have the Kindle and whatever other devices are going to come up, so what is the best way for us to exist in order to do the best journalism we can do?"

Downie, who last month said he'll retire in September after nearly 17 years as the Post's top editor, a tenure marked by 25 Pulitzer Prizes, declined to comment today. "I'll wait for Katharine's announcement," he said.

Downie's predecessor, Bradlee, turned the Post into a world-class newspaper and led it through its Watergate coverage.

Weymouth and Brauchli didn't respond to emails on this subject.

Correction:

The headline of this article originally misspelled Katharine Weymouth's first name. The article incorrectly said she was the fifth generation of her family to run the company, and gave Marcus Brauchli's age as 46.