Article December 1, 2008 Issue

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR...

Excerpts from an online discussion

In a live online chat on October 30, 2008, participants discussed coming change in the way The Christian Science Monitor is published, and fielded questions sent in by e-mail. Joining moderator Warren Bolon were Monitor Editor John Yemma and Managing Publisher Jonathan Wells; Mary Trammell, Editor in Chief of The Christian Science Publishing Society and a member of the Christian Science Board of Directors; Judy Wolff, who chairs the Board of Trustees of the Publishing Society; and Walter Jones, a member of both the Board of Trustees and the Board of Directors. The following excerpts from the full chat were edited for publication in the Sentinel. John Yemma and Jonathan Wells spoke first about the new developments.

John Yemma: To the Monitor, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, this is a historic opportunity to set the pace in the world of journalism and to expand its reach by having, essentially, three editions—an online continuously updated website, CSMonitor.com; a daily e-mail news summary that will reflect what's on the website, but also include an editorial column that will point to the news of the day; and a weekly print edition, which will come out timed for weekend reading.

By having these three different publications, the Monitor will be able to vastly expand its reach, and therefore, carry out in an even greater way than it has in its first one hundred years the mission that Mary Baker Eddy gave it at its outset: "to spread undivided the Science that operates unspent," and to do so in a way that "injure[s] no man, but ... bless[es] all mankind" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 353). This is, indeed, a forward step for us.