Joe Cannon, an attorney, lobbyist and former chairman of the Utah Republican Party, will become editor of the Deseret Morning News next month, succeeding John Hughes, who is returning to a teaching post at Brigham Young University.

Cannon, whose grandfather and great-grandfather were editors of the newspaper, starts Jan. 1, the newspaper said Friday.

Cannon has been on the newspaper's board since 1996. He resigned as state GOP leader after the Nov. 7 election and is the brother of U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah.

Cannon did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.

Despite the fact that Cannon's brother is a sitting U.S. congressman and that Cannon only recently stepped down as the state GOP chairman, Hughes said he had no qualms about turning over the editor's chair to him.

"Joe Cannon would be the first person to say he's not a journalist," Hughes said. "He's been a businessman and an attorney and a politician."

"I'm sure we ran some stories that caused him some heartache" because of his business or political connections, but Cannon never used his board member position to seek positive slants or kill negative reports, Hughes said.

The question of bias came up during the Deseret Morning News staff meeting announcing Cannon's new newsroom role.

"He said, 'If a story comes up related to my brother, or some other conflict ... I'm going to hand it off to a managing editor or an assistant managing editor or someone down the line,' " Hughes said. "He made it very clear."

Scott Libin, ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a news industry group, said that it will be up to Cannon to determine whether or not it becomes a conflict of interest. He said that transitions such as this one have happened, and Cannon will need to "bend over backward" to demonstrate to readers that he's serious about journalism and no longer the GOP.

"These things do happen, but I think the performance of the editor will need to convince readers that he has in fact left behind his advocacy, interests and taken an editorially independent stance. It will be an interesting one to watch," he said.

The Deseret Morning News, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had a daily circulation of 73,191 and 74,375 on Sunday, according to the Newspaper Agency Corp.'s figures from last year.

Former BYU communications professor and newspaper historian Ray Beckham of Provo said that he didn't see a conflict of interest.

"Where do past GOP chairmen gofi" he said laughing. "He's had a lot of experience in the printing industry. I think it's a good move."

Before becoming editor in 1997, Hughes was a journalism professor and director of the International Media Studies Program at BYU.

"It's been a great run at the Deseret Morning News," Hughes, 76, told The Associated Press. "We've done a lot of things I wanted to be involved in" -- such as taking the paper from afternoon to morning publication in 2003, "propping circulation up when most newspapers are losing" and building a new Newspaper Agency Corp. production facility in West Valley City with joint operating partner The Salt Lake Tribune.

The Newspaper Agency Corp. handles advertising sales, printing and distribution for the two Salt Lake City papers.

Hughes said it was always understood that he would return to BYU in Provo, and his 10-year anniversary at the newspaper seemed like a good time to do it.

"I think I might write a book or two," Hughes said, declining to name a topic until they're written.

Hughes won a Pulitzer Prize as a foreign correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. He was editor of the Monitor from 1970-79 and continues to write a weekly column for the paper.

During his business career, Cannon was chairman and chief executive of Geneva Steel Co. in Provo. In the 1980s, he and Hughes held jobs in the Reagan administration.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.