A few media odds and ends for your Monday morning:
• Marjorie Arons-Barron, a communications executive who was previously the longtime editorial director of WCVB-TV (Channel 5), recently started a blog. Arons-Barron is as sharp an observer of state and local politics as we have, and you should definitely plug her into your RSS aggregator. It is no slam on the city’s newspapers to point out that she is easily a match for anyone opining at the Boston Globe, the Boston Phoenix or the Boston Herald.
• During the special-election campaign for the U.S. Senate, a mystery blogger started a site called kennedyseat.com and became a respected source of links and information. After revealing himself to be Conor Yunits, the son of a former Brockton mayor and something of an aspiring politico in his own right, he has begun what looks to be a more permanent project called MassBeacon.com. Worth watching.
• CommonWealth Magazine, the quarterly public-policy journal published by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, has a new online look and a new URL. Not only is it a lot slicker and easier to read, but it is more closely tied to its blog, CommonWealth Unbound. Of particular interest is a section called Civic Journalism, with blog posts by and interviews with the likes of Globe editor Marty Baron, former Globe editor Matt Storin, former Globe columnist Eileen McNamara (do I detect a trend?) and Phoenix reporter-turned-media consultant Dorie Clark.
• Richard Adams, who has been editing my weekly commentaries for the Guardian since I started writing them in mid-2007, has been promoted, and is now writing a blog for the paper’s Web site. I especially like his item on President Obama’s summit with House Republicans, which begins: “When the Republicans invited President Obama to address their congressional House delegation in Baltimore today, they had no idea how badly it would turn out for them.” Definitely RSS-worthy.