The International Herald Tribune has announced that William Schmidt, most recently an assistant managing editor at the New York Times, has been named IHT‘s new top editor. Schmidt will be taking over for Martin Gottlieb who has been serving in the position on an interim basis. According to the release Gottlieb will be returning to New York from Paris to continue working on the integration of the two papers.

Schmidt has been at the Times since 1981 and in 1987 he was one of a team of reporters who shared the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for a series of articles about the causes of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. He will move into his new position by the end of the year.

Tribulations continue in Paris as the New York Times exerts more of its influence at the International Herald Tribune. Disgruntled staff held a meeting yesterday, and there were plenty of complaints expected, including continued concerns over compensation and how long the paper can continue as a business. There had previously been talks of bringing many of IHT’s operations to New York, and warnings some five years ago that the paper would not be allowed to continue as is if it wasn’t doing well financially by now.

Also on some minds: the gender balance. Before Christmas, staffers had complained that the opinion section was appointing only men. Serge Schmemann and Brian Zittel are Timesmen. Andrew Johnston, who was at IHT before the Times bought out the Washington Post and took over, is going on sabbatical. On the masthead, four of fourteen editorial positions are held by women.

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