Erik Slavin, a longtime Stars and Stripes bureau chief in Europe, has been named the media organization’s new top editor.

Slavin succeeds former Editor-in-Chief Robert H. Reid, who retired earlier this year after a more than 50-year career in journalism that included 11 years at Stars and Stripes.

“When I chose the new Editor in Chief for Stars and Stripes, I was looking for a leader with a strong strategic vision for our audience, journalism, and community engagement…. Erik, a long-time Stripes journalist, is the right choice. He has the innovative leadership skills to guide our team as we adapt to changes in content, readership habits, and how we deliver the news,” Publisher Max Lederer said Friday.

Slavin, a native of Miami, Fla., joined Stars and Stripes in 2005 as a reporter covering all services in Okinawa. For the next six years, he was frequently sent on assignment to Iraq, embedding with U.S. forces during combat operations.

Subsequent roles included a three-year stint reporting on the 2^nd Infantry Division in South Korea and nine years on mainland Japan, where he led coverage of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific.

For the past eight years, Slavin oversaw news operations in Europe and the Middle East at Stars and Stripes’ European headquarters in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

In that position, he managed reporters on assignment in many countries, including Afghanistan, where Stripes maintained a bureau until the final withdrawal of U.S. forces from that country in 2021.

Slavin earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s in mass communications from the University of Florida. His graduate work focused on media coverage of the war in Afghanistan.

In his new role, Slavin will be based at Stars and Stripes’ headquarters in Washington.