New York Times Names 2 Top Editors : Newspapers: Pulitzer winner Joseph Lelyveld becomes executive editor, with Eugene L. Roberts as managing editor.

The New York Times announced the appointment of a new executive editor Thursday and the return to its ranks of one of the nation’s more prominent journalists.

Joseph Lelyveld, a Pulitzer Prize winner who has been the paper’s managing editor for four years, will become executive editor on July 1. Returning to the Times as managing editor will be Eugene L. Roberts Jr., 61, who left the paper two decades ago to win honors during 18 years as executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Lelyveld, 57, succeeds Max Frankel, who will write a column about the media for the New York Times magazine.

Lelyveld’s ascension, which comes a few months ahead of Frankel’s reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65, did not surprise industry observers. But the return of Roberts was unexpected.

“ Stunning is the word around here,” said one of the newspaper’s top editors.

“Gene changes the chemistry, the leadership,” Lelyveld said in an interview. “It gives a sense of a new regime. It is surprising, electrifying, and I like that bounce, that pop.”

Roberts joins the newspaper at a time of considerable financial stress, generational change and editorial experimentation. The paper is giving some of its writers unprecedented freedom to express their own narrative voices.

“I wanted to send that sense of commitment to basic news values,” Lelyveld said.

Alex Jones, a former media critic for the New York Times, agreed that the change is significant.

“I think it is going to be a way of marrying the new journalism that the Times is trying to find its way through with the best of the Times traditions of straightforward, hard-hitting reporting,” he said.

Lelyveld and Roberts are personally close. In an internal letter to members of the New York Times staff, Lelyveld described Roberts as “a mentor.”

Sources said Frankel’s early departure was motivated in part by his concern that internal speculation and politicking about the coming changes was harmful. At an emotional meeting Thursday, Frankel compared editing the newspaper to running a relay race. What matters most, he said, is passing the baton in full stride.

Frankel also was said to have become weary of budget battles in an era of declining profits. Last year, the New York Times Co., which also owns other publications, earned a relatively meager profit of $6 million on revenue of $2 billion.

Frankel, who immigrated from Germany, served as the paper’s Washington bureau chief and editorial page editor before becoming executive editor. His eight years at the helm were marked by unexpected experimentation and new freedom in the newsroom.

Amid a recession, Frankel’s New York Times revamped its sports and metropolitan sections and Sunday magazine and attempted to reorient the paper toward local and younger readers.

Lelyveld, who is said to have a large appetite for experimentation, began his New York Times career in 1962. He has served as foreign editor and has held a wide range of assignments. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for his book about apartheid in South Africa, “Move Your Shadow.”

Roberts is considered a champion of investigative reporting. During his 18 years at the Inquirer, that paper won 17 Pulitzer Prizes and overtook and eventually vanquished the larger Philadelphia Bulletin.