TIME MEDIA OUT OF THE CLOISTER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100270024-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 15, 2004
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: August 23, 1971
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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Approved For Release 20047'1~/~8'~'~TA1RDP88-01314 000100270024-0
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The C;hrfstian Science hTonitor has vvrn1
three Pulitzer Prizes in the ~ past four
years arul Inorc than 100 different jour-
nalism awards over the past decade. hor
a loaf; iirne, in fact, the Monitor has been
the kind of newsp..rper that both laymen
anti professionals respect--hut much less
often read. Over the years since it was
laullchccl in 1`)08, the church-o\anecl pa-
per clevelopecl a reputation for Ilarrow-
inindedness and fusty conscr?vatism, and
with it a virtually static readership whose
average age vvas nearly as old as the
nc~i'spapcr itself. Now,'as cclclies of social
consciousness blow around the ulhamod-
-ern bnilcling complex the i\?lother Church
is erecting in Boston, au esb-a gust has
reached the 1\lonitor and \vhisl:ed iu a
new editor-~Velslr-born, i~nglish-cchrcat-
ed John Iiughes. A. dynamic Pulitzer
.Prize-\vinuing veteran. of the pape]'s
overseas staff, the 4:7.-year-old Iiughes
was granted a blanket mandate by
church elders to uncloister its editorial
goals and to reach out, as he describes
it, "to the poor, fire blacks alyd~ all the
others who were not included before.".
Quick to accept the challenge,
Hughes's frsl step last fall vvas to initiate
a near-total reconstruction of iIIC news
staff. "The paper vvas suffering from
hardening of the arteries," IIughes in-
sists, "and looked prissily ?at the world
through rose-colored glasses." 1Ie dis-
missed anumber of old-timers, aplx>intcd
three new senior editors, called in some
tough old pros such as ABC's Joseph G.
Iiv~scll to bring new force#uhless to the
editorial page and hil?ed a crew of ag-
g]'(',SS1Ve yOllIlg TCp01'te]?S \L'holll he n11-
mediately assi.gnecl to explore such
youth?~orienicd topics as communes and
hitchhiking. (Among those untouched by
the Iiughes scalpel \vas venerable politi-
cal analyst 1'~ichard Strout--;7'he 1`sTcw Re-
public's `"1'.R.B."--for 50 years a corner-~
stone of the Monitor's op-ed page.) "I've
brought in people \vith a great sense of
outreach," savs IIughes, adding th.ai: he
is not yet finisllccL
Deem: The major change -that $1e
genial, handsome editor has instilled iS1
fire Aonitor's nc\vsroom is a new sense of
~inlnlediacy. Because 90 per cent of its
readers receive their topics by mail,
the paper's staff hacl long been accus-
tonled to polishing stories with little rc-
garcl to cleacllines; as a result, InosC. of the
news coverage hn?lled ou.t to be pondel?-
OL1S background pieces, little more than
lac};luster supplements to the timely re-
porting of other dailies. All that has
changed in the last eleven months. Says
IIughes-appointed nationa]. news editor
David Ii.. Willis, 32: "Our correspondents
services do anti then go into it much
deeper-all. in the same story.
1n some I;cspects, tang-standing policy
at the newspaper remains untouched:
smoking is still barred in t11e newsroolrr
anal the paper runs no obituary columns.
Nl;veriheless, one of the most riolablr,
realities about t11e "ncnv" A4ouitor is the
progressive disappearance of many mtii-
quatcd strictures that dale to the clays
when the paper was a proselytizing in-
struul.ent of il.le church. Like other first-
ranl: newspapers, the i~Zonitor defied the
goverrullcnt and printed excerpts froru
the Pentagon papers before the Supreme
Court approved. their publication. ]~;ven
more stunning to olcl-line readers, the
JIughes team ran blockbuster stories on
the Manson inu.rder trial and the Ali-
hrazier fight, then followed vvidl an ag-
gressivcr editorial on the chief of the h'BI,
entitled "Ilaovel? itlust Go." Sutns up
Iiughes, himself a In?actieing Christian
Sciealtist (a tacit requisite of all 14oniior
.