Posted May. 10, 2008
The Boston Globe
As The Christian Science Monitor marks its 100th anniversary this year, the Boston-based newspaper is weighing changes with an eye toward remaining viable in an uncertain media environment.
In an e-mailed response to questions from the Globe, Jonathan Wells, the managing publisher of the Monitor, acknowledged that the paper is considering a "weekly product," along with "the staffing requirements to produce it."
"Like most newspapers we are actively investigating a range of formats and frequency in response to our readers' needs, rising operating costs and changing technology," Wells wrote. He added that "no decisions have been made."
If the Monitor does launch a weekly edition, it would inevitably fuel speculation about the implications for the daily paper. Like many other newspapers, the Monitor has battled declining circulation as readers have migrated to the Internet. From a peak of more than 230,000 in the early 1970s, the Monitor's average daily circulation had dropped to 56,083 as of March 31, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
A former consultant to the paper, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Monitor insiders have told him that a prototype of a weekly edition is underway and that they believe the long-term goal could be to eventually phase out the daily paper. Under this scenario, daily news operations would move to the Monitor's website, which is heavily trafficked and considered successful. Wells, who was appointed in 2005 along with editor Richard Bergenheim, did not respond specifically to questions about whether there are any plans to switch from a daily to a weekly.
The notion of the Monitor becoming a weekly paper has been floated for years. If that occurred, one obvious question would be whether the same newsroom staffing levels would be required.
The Monitor already publishes a weekly International Edition that is only available outside the United States.
The Monitor is published by the First Church of Christ, Scientist. The annual meeting of the church's board of directors is scheduled for June 2 in Boston. In 2004, the church gave the newspaper a mandate to be self-sufficient by 2009 rather than relying on subsidies from the church. Both the church and the newspaper have weathered budget cuts and job losses in recent years.
The Monitor was launched on Nov. 25, 1908, by Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, as an alternative to the sensationalistic "yellow journalism" of the time. Over the ensuing century, the Monitor consistently won respect for the breadth and depth of its coverage. Emphasizing thoughtful analysis, with international news coverage considered a particular strength, the Monitor has won seven Pulitzer Prizes. In 1998, with much of the national media in frenzied pursuit of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the paper spent millions on a redesign and focused on what it called "principled journalism."
However, several earlier media ventures that were designed to extend the Monitor's brand ended in failure. Most notorious was the foray into television that involved the purchase of Channel 68 in Boston and the creation of the Monitor Channel in 1991. It was a $300 million disaster that lasted only one year. In 1997, Monitor Radio went dark after 13 years of running annual deficits of $8 million. The monthly World Monitor magazine folded in 1993 after five years, with a loss of $40 million.
