Former News of the World editor is back - as editor-in-chief at Mort Zuckerman's New York Daily News

Former News of the World editor Colin Myler has been appointed editor-in-chief of the New York Daily News. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

The man who was editing the News of the World when it was closed by Rupert Murdoch, and whose editorship of the Sunday Mirror ended after his paper collapsed a trial, is back – this time at Mort Zuckerman's New York Daily News.

Myler knows New York, having spent the first half of the last decade as a senior executive at Murdoch's New York Post. The coming battle with the Post will be quite some boxing match.

Yet, Zuckerman's appointment is hardly short on risk. Though Myler was not caught up in the phone-hacking scandal, his editorship of the News of the World had its controversial moments. If Murdoch's Post feels a little shy about bringing them up, there are plenty in New York who will. And that's before every public, police and parliamentary inquiry has concluded.

Let's recap the issues:

• The who knew what and when question about the extent of phone hacking at the News of the World. Myler's editorship came after the hacking, of course, but square in the middle of the time when the Murdoch machine said it was all down to a "single rogue reporter". News International seems to find a new email on this topic every week.

• The row about whether it was right to expose Max Mosley's sadomasochistic orgies. And whether it was right to post a video of the motorsport boss on the internet.

• The decision to publish Kate McCann's personal diary without her consent. Kate McCann's daughter, Madeleine McCann, was abducted while she and her husband were on holiday in Portugal.

• The ongoing criminal inquiries into corrupt payments to police officers at the News of the World. Several reporters who worked under Myler and his predecessors have been arrested. Let's be clear – there is no evidence that links Myler to any of this. But it is not certain what could be thrown up: after all just an embarrassing story could cause the new editor some concern.

Of course Myler's editorships are not without achievement – the exposure of Pakistani cricket corruption being one. But there is no shortage of material for US critics to reheat and replay – and while Myler may have heard it all before, the question is, what will the News's readers think when they hear it for the first few times?

Paul Dacre, the editor-in-chief of London's formidable Daily Mail, wrote that the secret of editorship was determining when to be cautious and when to be bold. Easy to say, hard to do. But does Myler's track record show he has good judgement in this area? What is for sure is that Zuckerman, the owner, has been very bold indeed