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.
Braving Rockets To Build Social Bonds
A hot war in the Middle East rightly owns international headlines now. But Russia’s war on Ukraine continues to deeply affect daily lives – including those of the very young. This year, a third of Ukrainian students are going back to in-person classes full time, in places where their schools can be called relatively safe. Writer Dominique Soguel spoke to host Clay Collins about the work of reporting her recent story on Ukrainians’ resolve to give their children the human connection they need to thrive.
A Zeal for Reels, Unspooled
How does the Monitor’s film critic approach the work of identifying what to review, and how? For Peter Rainer, it’s about intelligent curating, and staying moored by his own context-rich experience – even amid buzz around topics like “Barbenheimer,” or the question of whether superhero movies are a scourge. It’s about serving his audience by filtering the noise that can overshadow the works themselves. Peter spoke with host Clay Collins about how he does that – with a bonus anecdote about a surprising encounter with Quentin Tarantino.
Rejecting an Easy, Ageist Narrative
How does the Monitor report fairly on the rising number of important U.S. politicians who are reaching advanced ages – and getting ever greater media and public scrutiny over issues of mental acuity? Two longtime Washington reporters, Linda Feldmann, the Monitor’s D.C. bureau chief, and Gail Chaddock, guest host and former congressional correspondent, discuss how not to get swept up in a prevailing narrative.
This Forest is More Than the Trees
Talk about seeing the forest for the trees. When Jingnan Peng, a multimedia reporter as well as regular producer of this show, caught wind of a forest-planting project near our Boston base, he grabbed his video camera and a drone. The story he ended up filming: that of Maya Dutta, whose work with Biodiversity for a Livable Climate has her creating Miyawaki forests. For this episode – partly an encore of one in which Jing described his approach to videography – Jing spoke to host Clay Collins about how he found this story, why it’s a natural Monitor piece, and how it fits his oeuvre.
A Writer’s Wrexham Moment
Journalists on the culture beat often get to be on hand for big events. Usually they can see them coming. As Season 2 of the Welsh football series “Welcome to Wrexham” rolls out on FX, the Monitor’s Stephen Humphries relives a May assignment that dropped him into the stadium where a low-tier team would notch an improbable victory. He tells guest host Kendra Nordin Beato about the surge of fan identity that the team’s win gave to its sleepy hometown – and to a larger community beyond.
How Lahaina Looks Forward
What does it take to report on a disaster sensitively, safely, and through a Monitor lens? How can a reporter find credible hope for eventual renewal amid devastation? Writer Sarah Matusek spoke to host Clay Collins about reporting from West Maui immediately following the Aug. 8 fires – and about finding generosity and agency in abundance.
Images That Bring Humanity Into Focus
Photography does so much to humanize reporting. What does it mean to come at stories quite literally through the “Monitor lens” that this show explores? A longtime staff shooter who has made images in more than 80 countries and on every continent, Melanie Stetson Freeman talks with host Clay Collins about joyful moments and sobering ones, and about how the people and places she encounters still bring surprises after all of that travel and all of those years.
What Debates Really Mean
Debates have been a part of American politics at least since the Lincoln-Douglas Senate tilt became, perhaps unfairly, kind of a standard-setter. Some (Kennedy-Nixon) have been media moments. Some (Bentsen-Quayle) have spawned sound bites that ricocheted through a race. They can entertain. They can inform. As a new debate season kicks off, what does it mean to size them up for substance? Veteran Washington reporter Peter Grier spoke to guest host Gail Russell Chaddock.
The Rise of the Microschool?
Small-group learning has been around for a while. It got a boost from pandemic learning pods. Are microschools – essentially modern-day one-room schoolhouses – effective? Education writer Jackie Valley joins host Clay Collins to discuss her reporting on an emerging trend that one proponent says is about “building a civil society from scratch” – and that others hail as a transformational, bottom-up movement that could ultimately help reform U.S. education.
Where Disinformation Gets Destroyed
Honest, well-presented data ought to be ironclad. In what some have dubbed a “post-truth” age, however, numbers can be dismissed simply for not matching a chosen narrative. Jake Turcotte builds graphics and data visualizations for the Monitor. He spoke with host Clay Collins about the importance of arraying data that presents information in a way that’s credible, digestible, and a tool for helping readers make up their own minds about complex stories.