The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor (CSM), commonly known as The Monitor, is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in electronic format and a weekly print edition.[1][2] It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the new religious movement Christian Science, Church of Christ, Scientist.[3]
Type
The newspaper has been based in Boston since its establishment. The Christian Science Monitor has won multiple Pulitzer Prizes and other journalistic accolades in its history.[4]
History[edit]
20th century[edit]
The Monitor was founded in 1908 in part as a response by Mary Baker Eddy to the journalism of her day, which relentlessly covered the sensations and scandals surrounding her new religion with varying 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.[4] 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.[4]
Eddy also saw a vital need to counteract the fear often spread by media reporting:
Circulation[edit]
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.[35] 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.[6]: 150 On the brink of bankruptcy, the board was forced to close the broadcast programs in 1992.[6]: 163–166
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.[36] 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.[37] As of September 2023, the number of hits had fallen to 1 million per month.[38]
Staff of The Monitor have been recipients of seven Pulitzer Prizes for their work on The Monitor: