In the coming months, Dean Baquet, the august executive editor of The New York Times, will announce his resignation and, barring an unforeseen disaster, pass the reins to managing editor Joe Kahn, sources familiar with the paper’s succession plans tell me. The passing of the editorial torch, which we’ve been anticipating since the fall, will surprise exactly no one at the paper of record. Baquet has long planned to step down this year and Kahn is so instrumental to the editorial leadership and such a well-known quantity that, even at a moment when nearly every news organization is putting a premium on diversity, no one is likely to balk at the appointment of a 57-year-old, Harvard-educated white man to the top of the Times masthead. Indeed, if there is anything notable about the Times succession story this time around, it’s how seamless and drama-free it is likely to be.