The quiet man of tabloid journalism returns to the US

David Yelland was a surprise choice five years ago. A quiet man, his background in City journalism appeared an unlikely training ground for editor of the bold, brash soaraway Sun.

He has acquired none of the public notoriety of his more flamboyant rival, Piers Morgan of The Mirror. Yet he has proved a steadying hand at a newspaper that was looking a little wobbly in the summer of 1998 when the combination of showbusiness and royal stories favoured by his predecessor, Stuart Higgins, was beginning to seem threadbare.

Mr Yelland told senior journalists yesterday that the newspaper's proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, had set him six goals when he became editor. Principal among these were increasing The Sun's lead over The Mirror, forging closer ties to New Labour and giving the title a more serious edge.

Mr Yelland said he had succeeded in what he had been asked to do and the time was right to move on. Business school beckons, probably Harvard in the spring, followed by a place in Mr Murdoch's management team at the News Corporation, the newspaper's parent company, in America.

While the mischievous world of Fleet Street always speculates when an editor departs, Mr Yelland certainly seemed very happy at the announcement and insisted it was exactly what he had told Mr Murdoch he would like to do.

"You can only do this job for a certain number of years. The sensible thing to do is to close one chapter and not cling on until either you go bonkers or you get kicked out on the streets," he said.

"I think the paper has got integrity [now] and is more respected than it has ever been before. I think our stories are followed around town in a way they haven't been before. But I'm 40 this year and I've got to think about where I want to go."

He said he had always wanted to return to the United States – where he once worked as The Sun's New York correspondent and later as deputy editor of the New York Post – and to business school. "It's a dream of mine," he said.

Mr Murdoch is known to like his departing editor, who was at his side during his annual drinks reception before Christmas. Mr Yelland also used to write the media mogul's speeches.

One News International insider added: "You've got to have a look at Yelland's background. It's business and politics. He wasn't brought in to make the tits bigger on page three." Mr Yelland is understood to be the first executive News International has sponsored at business school since Nicholas Lloyd was dispatched to Harvard two decades ago.

Yet critics could reasonably claim The Sun has lost the flair and the wit that marked its heyday under Kelvin MacKenzie, who was editor from 1981-94. There were fewer of the headlines that marked Mr MacKenzie's tenure and a greater sensitivity towards subjects such as gay rights that would have had Mr MacKenzie choking over breakfast.

Although sometimes willing to attack the Government, there was a softening of the line towards Labour and the paper encouraged readers to vote for Tony Blair. Mr Yelland even went as far as to condemn the Daily Mail for its nastiness. Yet while David Yelland seemed the more cerebral editor, he dismissed Mr Morgan's more serious news agenda at The Mirror as a folly. He seemed to be right. Sales of The Sun have stabilised at around 3.5 million copies, while The Mirror's circulation has continued to fall and is now little more than 2 million.

Ian Reeves, the editor of the UK Press Gazette, said he thought David Yelland was "probably a fairly good editor" but he suffered from what all editors of The Sun will suffer from in future.

"Unless you do something astonishingly outstanding – which in this climate is almost impossible to do – history just marks you down as one of the people who followed Kelvin," Mr Reeves said.

"At The Sun, everything just pales in comparison with Kelvin MacKenzie. That's always going to be that impossible mark to live up to, the thing that looks over you."