I don't know much about Rebecca Ostriker, who's been tapped to replace Scott Heller as the Globe's arts editor. (Heller recently decided to decamp* for the New York Times.) But the memo announcing Ostriker's appointment offers reason for optimism--starting with the fact that Ostriker, who'd been Heller's second in command, helped edit the coverage that won critic Mark Feeney a 2008 Pulitzer.

Globe arts editor and Phoenix alum Scott Heller will be leaving the paper for the New York Times at the end of this month. The memo sent last week by Globe editor Marty Baron and features editor Doug Most follows; Baron tells me they'll be naming Heller's replacement "in the next few weeks."

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To all:

We are sad to report that we will be losing one of our most creative

Jim Concannon--who'll be news editor in Harvard's public-affairs office--takes a great deal of institutional knowledge with him. Here's the press release from deputy managaing editor of features Doug Most:

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Those of you who know Jim Concannon know they don't come more selfless. In
every role he's had here, and there have been many, it's always been about

Congrats to Doug Most, formerly the editor of the Globe Magazine, who's been named the paper's deputy managing editor/features.

Structurally, Most's appointment seems eminently sensible. (It also raises the question of why the Globe didn't have a features czar until now--better late than never, perhaps?) It can also be taken as an indication that Globe editor Marty Baron thinks the Globe will survive its current crisis--or at least, is determined to act as if it will.