Barrett Marson

Tribune writer Mary K. Reinhart’s in-depth profile Sunday of Kirk Adams, the next speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, revealed the answer to a question being tossed around by journalists and public relations officials alike: Is Barrett Marson in or out as the spokesman for House Republicans? Marson won’t be part of the new administration as Adams looks to replace all of the top staff members from the Jim Weiers administration.

“We’re making a clean break,” Adams told Reinhart. ”This is a good time, especially for Republicans.”

Marson has been the House communications director for more than three years, serving as Weiers’ voice to the media and writing press releases for other House Republicans as well. Marson could be annoyingly aggressive as he tried to get traditional media and bloggers to cover an issue that he believed made his bosses look good or would embarrass Weiers’ most potent foe — Gov. Janet Napolitano. But Marson is generally well-liked for his sense of humor, and always has respected the role of journalists in the politcal system even when some lawmakers didn’t. He also gained extra attention earlier this year during his one-on-one debates with state Democratic Party spokeswoman Emily DeRose on “Horizon,” the local news issues PBS show.

Still, elected leaders who defeat an incumbent, as Adams did with Weiers, typically want new key advisors who don’t have close ties to the prior administration.

A former award-winning print reporter, Marson cover state politics for several years for the Tribune and then the Arizona Daily Star. In 2001, he broke the story of then-Gov. Jane Dee Hull’s frequent weekend flights in a state-owned airplane to stay at her cabin retreat in the White Mountains. That story helped to shape a rather negative image of Hull during her final two years in office.