Globe reporter named CommonWealth editor

Bruce Mohl, an investigative reporter, political editor, and consumer reporter for The Boston Globe for nearly 30 years, is being named the editor of CommonWealth magazine today. CommonWealth is a quarterly journal of Massachusetts politics and civic life published by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, a nonpartisan think tank also known as MassINC. Mohl, 53, will start next month. He began his career as a copy editor at the Globe in 1978. Mohl served as State House bureau chief in the late 1980s and worked on the Spotlight Team, which won the Gerald Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state's pension system. Most recently, Mohl was a consumer reporter and columnist in the Business section. (Jenn Abelson)

The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to deny Verizon Communications Inc.'s request to be released from requirements it give competitors access to its network at regulated rates in Greater Boston and five other markets. The FCC said there was not sufficient competition in any of the markets to allow Verizon to have more say in setting its own rates. (Carolyn Y. Johnson)

Analog Devices Inc., the Norwood maker of motion sensor chips for Nintendo Co.'s Wii video-game system, said chief financial officer Joseph McDonough, 60, will retire in May after 24 years with the company. No successor has yet been named. (Bloomberg)

Christopher Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, threatened to investigate whether the Wall Street firm formerly run by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson sold shaky mortgages to investors while betting they would fail. Dodd asked Paulson to respond to allegations leveled in an op-ed column in the Sunday New York Times. Before joining the Bush administration a year ago, Paulson was chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The column, by economist, actor, and former TV game show host Ben Stein, called on Goldman to explain "just what Wall Street and Goldman did to make money as they pumped this mortgage mess into the economic system, and sometimes were seemingly on both sides of the deal." (AP)

A Senate panel approved a bill that would put the brakes on a plan to let broadcasters own a newspaper in the same media market. The Senate Commerce Committee, on a voice vote, backed the Media Ownership Act of 2007, which would delay passage by the Federal Communications Commission of any new media ownership rules for 180 days, or longer, depending on whether studies on the impact of media consolidation on local communities and minority ownership are completed. "The last thing we need in this country is more concentration in the media," said Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, a cosponsor of the bill. The vote may be too late for opponents of media consolidation, however. The FCC is expected to vote Dec. 18 on a proposal by FCC chairman Kevin Martin that would eliminate the ban on one company owning a radio or TV station and a newspaper in the same community in the nation's 20 largest markets. (AP)

Yahoo Inc. is touching up its online photo sharing service, Flickr, with free editing tools aimed at the growing number of shutterbugs who want to doctor their digital pictures. The software, expected to be introduced today in a partnership with Picnik Inc., represents Yahoo's latest attempt to broaden Flickr's appeal as it closes its older Yahoo Photos service. (AP)

The New Republic magazine said it cannot stand by three "Baghdad Diarist" dispatches it published, which were written by a soldier in Iraq whose claims included soldiers mocking a disfigured woman and running over dogs. An article by New Republic editor Franklin Foer posted Monday described rereporting the magazine did on pieces by Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, 24, that were published under a pseudonym beginning in January. (AP)