Boston | In shuffle, change without a difference?

The Boston Globe's new incoming publisher, Christopher Mayer (left), has announced a series of changes in the paper's top management for departments including advertising, news, finance and human resources. But except for HR, I can't see how these new titles, reported today in this Globe story, reflect anything more than that: new titles. The story doesn't suggest any big functional changes in job descriptions.

Mayer succeeds the retiring Steven Ainsley on Jan. 1. Ainsley who has been the paper's top executive for the past three, tumultuous years. At the time the publisher change was announced, Oct. 29, the Globe noted: "Mayer has been with the Globe since 1984 and is the first insider the Times Co. has named publisher since buying the newspaper from the Taylor family in 1993. The Times Co. fired Benjamin Taylor in 1999 and installed one of its own executives, Richard Gilman, as publisher. Ainsley, who has run numerous regional papers for the Times Co., succeeded Gilman in September 2006."

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[Photo: Globe]