Public-school teachers run on passion for their work and for the kids in their classrooms. That work is vital to a thriving society. But teachers also are widely regarded as being underpaid – often moonlighting to get by. A Monitor education writer looks at a push to create a higher baseline for compensation in a story that really extends to equality and fairness. Hosted by Clay Collins.
Why is Christian Science in our name?
Why is Christian Science in our name?
Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that.
The Church publishes the Monitor because it sees good journalism as vital to progress in the world. Since 1908, we’ve aimed “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind,” as our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, put it.
Here, you’ll find award-winning journalism not driven by commercial influences – a news organization that takes seriously its mission to uplift the world by seeking solutions and finding reasons for credible hope.
Explore values journalism About us
Why We Wrote This
Who reports the news? People. And at The Christian Science Monitor, we believe that it’s our job to report each story with a sense of shared humanity. Through conversations with our reporters and editors, we explain the qualities behind our reporting that affect how we approach the news. Behind today’s headlines we find respect, resilience, dignity, agency, and hope. “Why We Wrote This” shows how. The Monitor is an award-winning, nonpartisan news organization with bureaus around the globe. Visit CSMonitor.com/whywewrotethis to learn more.
The notion of assistance in dying as an act of mercy is ancient. Now it has become part of a global debate that’s taking a variety of forms, and that ultimately is about what a caring society truly looks like. How a team of Monitor writers parsed that, with care and compassion. Hosted by Samantha Laine Perfas.
Is there a credible counternarrative to the sense that industrial-grade partisan brinkmanship is all that’s on tap in U.S. politics? Francine Kiefer talks about reporting an Alaska story that shows how cooperation and respect might be a way forward. Hosted by Samantha Laine Perfas.
How did a story on solutions to Toronto’s deepening housing crisis become a story about empathy and compassion? Staff writer Sara Miller Llana tracked down those working to shift intergenerational tension toward a focus on mutual goals, resulting in potential win-win solutions. She spoke with host Samantha Laine Perfas.
Every storyteller has a favorite medium. For the Monitor’s Jingnan Peng, it’s videography that carries that special power to humanize his reporting and drive stories home – especially stories that bring respect to underdogs and marginalized groups. Revealing their agency brings Jing joy. Hosted by Samantha Laine Perfas.
Popular uprisings, and hints of more. Stories of struggles that seem to run in unending cycles. How does a news organization committed to finding evidence of shared human values keep a constructive framing? Peter Ford, the Monitor’s international news editor, spoke with host Clay Collins about the challenge.
Hollywood might not have had a “tipping point” year when it comes to diversity. But Monitor columnist Ken Makin acknowledges that the year reflected a continuum of progress for representation. In this episode, he speaks with host Samantha Laine Perfas about how some of the year's top hits – including “Wakanda Forever,” “Till,” and “Star Wars” – expanded the genre of Black storytelling.
Farming is among the most basic, and essential, relationships that humans can have with our planet. And it’s evolving to keep pace with changing climate conditions. In this episode, Whitney Eulich, the Monitor’s Mexico City-based Latin America editor and writer, talks with host Clay Collins about the roots of a Monitor story on global innovation in small-scale agriculture.
Will the four-day workweek take hold, at least in sectors where qualified workers remain scarce? Veteran reporter Laurent Belsie took a close look at a long-running labor reform idea that is again sparking the popular imagination. He talks with host Samantha Laine Perfas about finding a Monitor angle on a workplace dynamics story that’s getting a lot of coverage.
What is the role of gratitude in our lives? To answer that question, staff writer Harry Bruinius gathered written expressions of thanks from people who had sent or received them, and then conducted interviews about their impact. He spoke to the Monitor’s Samantha Laine Perfas about what he learned.
