Monitoring the News, the Brilliant Launch and Sudden Collapse of The Monitor Channel

Bridge, Susan. Monitoring the News, the Brilliant Launch and Sudden Collapse of The Monitor Channel. New York: ME Sharpe, 1998.

In her compelling insider’s account, extensively end-noted, Bridge analyzes the bitter struggle that ensued when an entrepreneurial leadership tried to diversify and reposition the respected international newspaper The Christian Science Monitor into radio, the internet, multi-media publishing, and—the highest-ticket item of all—the Monitor Channel, a CNN-style, 24-hour news and public affairs channel. The book traces The Christian Science Monitor, founded in 1908 by church leader Mary Baker Eddy, within the broader historical trend of newspaper publishing—falling circulation and declining ad revenue beginning in the 1960s amid the growing popularity of digital news and entertainment. The Monitor Channel was planned through the 1980s, launched in 1991, shuttered in 1992. The book details key players within the organization and without, including the Boston Globe’s role as megaphone for critics and false rumors. Bridge raises fundamental questions about how and whether the public’s interest can be served in an age of spiraling costs, competition between print and electronic media, changing public tastes and undeclared media wars. At the time of publication, Bridge was a Boston-based writer and consultant on the business side of television programming, who was VP for Marketing and Director of Multi-Media and Educational Services at the Monitor Channel.

ISBN-10: 0765603160
ISBN-13 (Softcover): 978-0765603166
ISBN-13 (Hardcover): 978-0765603159