![]() | |
![]() The cover of The Christian Science Monitor for April 26, 2009 | |
Type | Weekly newspaper |
---|---|
Owner(s) | Christian Science Publishing Society |
Editor | Mark Sappenfield |
Founded | 1908 |
Headquarters | 210 Massachusetts Avenue Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. 02115 |
Circulation | 75,052 (Print, 2011) 10,000 (Digital, 2018) |
ISSN | 0882-7729 |
Website | www |
The Christian Science Monitor (CSM), commonly known as The Monitor, is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. [1] [2] It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. [3] As of 2011 [update] , the print circulation was 75,052. [4]
According to the organization's website, "the Monitor's global approach is reflected in how Mary Baker Eddy described its object as 'To injure no man, but to bless all mankind.' The aim is to embrace the human family, shedding light with the conviction that understanding the world's problems and possibilities moves us towards solutions." The Christian Science Monitor has won seven Pulitzer Prizes and more than a dozen Overseas Press Club awards. [5]
Despite its name, the Monitor is not a religious-themed paper, and does not promote the doctrine of its patron church. However, at its founder Eddy's request, a daily religious article has appeared near the end of every issue of the Monitor.
The paper has been known for avoiding sensationalism, producing a "distinctive brand of nonhysterical journalism". [6] [7] In 1997, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs , a publication critical of United States policy in the Middle East, praised the Monitor for its objective and informative coverage of Islam and the Middle East. [8]
During the 27 years while Nelson Mandela was in prison in South Africa for opposing apartheid, The Christian Science Monitor was one of the newspapers he was allowed to read. [9] Five months after his release, Mandela visited Boston and stopped by the Monitor offices, telling the staff "The Monitor continues to give me hope and confidence for the world's future," [10] and thanking them for their "unwavering coverage of apartheid." [9] He called the Monitor "one of the more important voices covering events in South Africa." [11]
In 2006, Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Monitor, was kidnapped in Baghdad, and released safely after 82 days. Although Carroll was initially a freelancer, the paper worked tirelessly for her release, even hiring her as a staff writer shortly after her abduction to ensure that she had financial benefits. [12] Beginning in August 2006, the Monitor published an account [13] of Carroll's kidnapping and subsequent release, with first-person reporting from Carroll and others involved.
The paper's circulation has ranged widely, from a peak of over 223,000 in 1970, to just under 56,000 shortly before the suspension of the daily print edition in 2009. [14] Partially in response to declining circulation and the struggle to earn a profit, the church's directors and the manager of the Christian Science Publishing Society were purportedly forced to plan cutbacks and closures (later denied), which led in 1989 to the mass protest resignations by its chief editor Kay Fanning (an ASNE president and former editor of the Anchorage Daily News ), managing editor David Anable, associate editor David Winder, and several other newsroom staff. Those developments also presaged administrative moves to scale back the print newspaper in favor of expansions into radio, a magazine, shortwave broadcasting, and television. Expenses, however, rapidly outpaced revenues, contradicting predictions by church directors. On the brink of bankruptcy, the board was forced to close the broadcast programs in 1992.
By late 2011, the Monitor was receiving an average of about 22 million hits per month on its website, slightly below the Los Angeles Times . [15] In 2017, the Monitor put up a paywall on its content, and in 2018, there were approximately 10,000 subscriptions to the Monitor Daily email service. [16]
The Monitor's inception was, in part, a response by its founder Mary Baker Eddy to the journalism of her day, which relentlessly covered the sensations and scandals surrounding her new religion with varying degrees of accuracy. In addition, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World was consistently critical of Eddy, and this, along with a derogatory article in McClure's , furthered Eddy's decision to found her own media outlet. [5] Eddy also required the inclusion of "Christian Science" in the paper's name, over initial opposition by some of her advisors who thought the religious reference might repel a secular audience. [5]
Eddy also saw a vital need to counteract the fear often spread by media reporting:
Looking over the newspapers of the day, one naturally reflects that it is dangerous to live, so loaded with disease seems the very air. These descriptions carry fears to many minds, to be depicted in some future time upon the body. A periodical of our own will counteract to some extent this public nuisance; for through our paper, at the price at which we shall issue it, we shall be able to reach many homes with healing, purifying thought. [17]
Eddy declared that the Monitor's mission should be "to injure no man, but to bless all mankind". [5]
MonitoRadio was a radio service produced by the Church of Christ, Scientist between 1984 and 1997. It featured several one-hour news broadcasts a day, as well as top of the hour news bulletins. The service was widely heard on public radio stations throughout the United States. The Monitor later launched an international broadcast over shortwave radio, called the World Service of the Christian Science Monitor. Weekdays were news-led, but weekend schedules were exclusively dedicated to religious programming. That service ceased operations on June 28, 1997. [18]
In 1986, the Monitor started producing a current affairs television series, The Christian Science Monitor Reports, which was distributed via syndication to television stations across the United States. In 1988, the Christian Science Monitor Reports won a Peabody Award [19] for a series of reports on Islamic fundamentalism. That same year, the program was canceled and the Monitor created a daily television program, World Monitor, anchored by former NBC correspondent John Hart, which was initially shown on the Discovery Channel. In 1991, World Monitor moved to the Monitor Channel, a 24-hour news and information channel. [18] The channel launched on May 1, 1991 with programming from its Boston TV station. [20] The only religious programming on the channel was a five-minute Christian Science program early each morning. [21] In 1992, after eleven months on the air, the service was shut down amid huge financial losses. [22] Programming from the Monitor Channel was also carried nationally via the WWOR EMI Service (a nationally oriented feed of New Jersey TV station WWOR-TV, launched in 1990 due to the SyndEx laws put into place the year prior).
The print edition continued to struggle for readership, and, in 2004, faced a renewed mandate from the church to earn a profit. Subsequently, the Monitor began relying more on the Internet as an integral part of its business model. The Monitor was one of the first newspapers to put its text online in 1996, and was also one of the first to launch a PDF edition in 2001. It was also an early pioneer of RSS feeds. [23]
In 2005, Richard Bergenheim, a Christian Science practitioner, was named the new editor. Shortly before his death in 2008, Bergenheim was replaced by a veteran Boston Globe editor and former Monitor reporter John Yemma. [24]
In October 2008, citing net losses of $US18.9 million per year versus $US12.5 million in annual revenue, the Monitor announced that it would cease printing daily and instead print weekly editions starting in April 2009. [25] [26] The last daily print edition was published on March 27, 2009.
The weekly magazine follows on from the Monitor's London edition, also a weekly, launched in 1960 and the weekly World Edition which replaced the London edition in 1974. [27] Mark Sappenfield became the editor in March 2017. [28]
Monitor staff have been the recipients of seven Pulitzer Prizes for their work on the Monitor:
The Boston Herald is an American daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarded eight Pulitzer Prizes in its history, including four for editorial writing and three for photography before it was converted to tabloid format in 1981. The Herald was named one of the "10 Newspapers That 'Do It Right'" in 2012 by Editor & Publisher.
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 26 Pulitzer Prizes, and had a weekday circulation of 92,820 during the final three months of 2019. The Boston Globe is the oldest and largest daily newspaper in Boston.
The Wall Street Journal is an American business-focused, English-language international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The Journal, along with its Asian editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The newspaper is published in the broadsheet format and online. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser.
The Chicago Sun-Times is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the Chicago Tribune. The modern paper grew out of the 1948 merger of the Chicago Sun and the Chicago Daily Times. Journalists at the paper have received eight Pulitzer prizes, mostly in the 1970s; one recipient was film critic Roger Ebert (1975), who worked at the paper from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ownership of the paper has changed hands numerous times, including twice in the late 2010s.
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper based in El Segundo, California, which has been published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It has the fifth-largest circulation in the U.S., and is the largest American newspaper not headquartered on the East Coast. The paper focuses its coverage of issues particularly salient to the West Coast, such as immigration trends and natural disasters. It has won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of these and other issues. As of June 18, 2018, ownership of the paper is controlled by Patrick Soon-Shiong, and the executive editor is Norman Pearlstine.
The Oregonian is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850, and published daily since 1861. It is the largest newspaper in Oregon and the second largest in the Pacific Northwest by circulation. It is one of the few newspapers with a statewide focus in the United States. The Sunday edition is published under the title The Sunday Oregonian. The regular edition was published under the title The Morning Oregonian from 1861 until 1937.
The Stranger is an alternative biweekly newspaper in Seattle, Washington, U.S. It also runs a blog known as Slog. The paper's principal competitor is The Seattle Weekly, owned by Sound Publishing, Inc.
The Sun Sentinel is the main daily newspaper of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as well as surrounding Broward County and southern Palm Beach County. Owned by Tribune Publishing, it circulates all throughout the three counties that comprise South Florida. It is the largest-circulation newspaper in the area.
The Daily of the University of Washington, usually referred to in Seattle simply as The Daily, is the student newspaper of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, USA. It is staffed entirely by University of Washington students, excluding the publisher, advertising adviser, accounting staff, and delivery staff.
The Rocky Mountain News was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States, from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As of March 2006, the Monday–Friday circulation was 255,427. From the 1940s until 2009, the newspaper was printed in a tabloid format.
The Providence Journal, colloquially known as the ProJo, is a daily newspaper serving the metropolitan area of Providence, Rhode Island, and is the largest newspaper in Rhode Island. The newspaper was first published in 1829 and is the oldest continuously-published daily newspaper in the United States. The newspaper has won four Pulitzer Prizes.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descended from the Pittsburgh Gazette, established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains, the paper has existed under its present title since 1927.
The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate is an American newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana, since January 25, 1837. The current publication is the result of the 2019 acquisition of The Times-Picayune by the New Orleans edition of The Advocate, which began publication in 2013 as a response to The Times-Picayune switching from a daily publication schedule to a Wednesday/Friday/Sunday schedule in October 2012.
The Daily Free Press is the independent student newspaper at Boston University. It is a digital-first publication with daily online content and a weekly print edition on Thursday during the academic year. The Daily Free Press is staffed by about 200 volunteer editors, writers, reporters and photographers. The editorial positions change on a semester-to-semester basis. The paper is governed by a board of former editors, who make up the Board of Directors of Back Bay Publishing Co., Inc., a Massachusetts non-profit.
Jill Carroll is an American former journalist who was kidnapped and ultimately released in Iraq.
The Advocate is Louisiana's largest daily newspaper. Based in Baton Rouge, it serves the southern portion of the state. Separate editions for New Orleans, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate, and for Acadiana, The Acadiana Advocate, are published. It also publishes gambit, about New Orleans food, culture, events, and news, and weekly entertainment magazines: Red in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, and Beaucoup in New Orleans.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is distributed in the metropolitan Chattanooga region of southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. It is one of Tennessee's major newspapers and is owned by WEHCO Media, Inc., a diversified communications company with ownership in 14 daily newspapers, 11 weekly newspapers and 13 cable television companies in six states. The current president of the Chattanooga Times Free Press is Jeff DeLoach.
Dele Olojede is a Nigerian journalist and former foreign editor for Newsday. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his work covering the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. He serves on the board of EARTH University, in Costa Rica, and of The Markup, the New York-based investigative journalism organization focused on the impact of large tech platforms and their potential for human manipulation. He is the founder and host of Africa In the World, a hearts and minds festival held annually in Stellenbosch, in the Cape winelands of South Africa. He was a patron of the Etisalat Prize for Literature.
Gary Cohn is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and adjunct professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
The 2012 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on April 16, 2012 by the Pulitzer Prize Board for work during the 2011 calendar year. The deadline for submitting entries was January 25, 2012. For the first time, all entries for journalism were required to be submitted electronically. In addition, the criteria for the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting has been revised to focus on real-time reporting of breaking news. For the eleventh time in Pulitzer's history, no book received the Fiction Prize.
Interview with editor John Yemma
NOTE: Your browser might no longer support this video format