"Everybody comes into this job, or any job for that matter, with a history. I can't change what my history is," he said. "But I can assure the staff and our readers that they are going to get truthful reporting with no thumb on the scale for anybody."

The issue of whether journalists can be bias-free "is at some level a silly discussion," Cannon said. "Everybody brings who they are to the table. I think what you can expect is, you're not going to get a shill for the Republican Party."

Cannon said he's stepping down from the law firm as well as from all boards with the possible exception of the Committee on Conscience of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Last month, he resigned as Utah GOP chairman.

And Cannon said he intends to stay away from stories in which he might be seen as having a conflict of interest, at least initially. "At the beginning, especially, I'll probably distance myself a lot from stories where it could be thought I might have some particular bias."

But Cannon stopped short of saying he wouldn't get involved in any type of political coverage. "I don't want to say I'm not going to look at all political stories," he said. "I have very strong views about the role of a newspaper as a watchdog."

During the nearly 11 years he's been on the Morning News board of directors, Cannon said he never attempted to influence the coverage of the news. He said that should tell the public how he'll handle his new duties.

"Never once in that time period did I use or attempt to use that position to influence this newspaper on any story, either wanting to get stories in or trying to keep stories out or shaping stories," he said.

But a journalism professor labeled the appointment "highly unusual."

Bryce Nelson, a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg Institute, said ideally, an editor-in-chief is somebody who has cut his teeth as a reporter and understands journalism and, possibly more importantly, journalists.

Nelson said it is also important to readers to have somebody leading a newspaper who possesses strong credentials and does not have "overtly" partisan leanings.

"The editor is the public face of the newspaper, and especially in a city the size of Salt Lake, they will know the editor's background," Nelson said. "Readers who want unbiased news will look at that editor to help them determine which paper to read."

He worried that replacing a well-respected editor like Hughes with someone who recently chaired the state GOP would "damage the credibility" of the Deseret Morning News — even if the newspaper already has conservative tendencies.