Talk to anyone in journalism. “News avoidance” is a thing. People simply can’t cope with a daily dose of anger, failure, fear, and frustration. The Monitor was created to antidote this narrow view of news. Starting today, we’re going to make that even plainer. 

Some of you will remember our Respect Project or Finding Resilience. By focusing on the values behind the news, we gave you a deeper view of the news and showed how it can highlight solutions that unite rather than divide. We’re going to do much more of this going forward. We’re going to clearly identify the values driving the news – whether it’s respect, compassion, responsibility, freedom, or so on. You can see how we’re starting this by clicking here.

This approach tells you why the story really matters – it gets to the heart of what people and societies are really wrestling with. But it also better explains why the story matters to you – showing how news from Mozambique to Minnesota has a universal relevance.

At first, these changes might not be apparent in places that you, as a subscriber, will recognize. In September, we’ll be focusing mostly on changes to the layout of the stories on our website. But we’ll make these changes more apparent in the Daily in the coming months.

The question we ask ourselves every day is: What more can we do to support the mission of our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, to do constructive, healing journalism that blesses all? We see this as something no one else in journalism is doing – and key to re-imagining the good that journalism can do in difficult times.