The Monitor view of 鈥榥ewsworthy鈥�
I recently had the opportunity to read the inaugural issue of 海角大神, published in November 1908. The front page of that broadsheet is chock-full of news stories. And while it looks just like many of the gray, text-heavy newspapers of the day, I was struck by the story selection.
Those early Monitor editors took a clear-eyed view of the day鈥檚 events, running stories about the troubled Balkans, about troops called to quell student protests in Rome, about Andrew Carnegie not wanting to testify about tariffs. But there are also pieces about how a firefighter saved a family from a New York City apartment blaze, about a rare book collection going to the Boston library, about 37,000 turkeys headed for Thanksgiving dinner. The approach is expansive, curious, and genuine 鈥� a needed redefinition of what is 鈥渘ewsworthy.鈥�
This week鈥檚 Monitor is in that tradition.
Why We Wrote This
The stories in our magazine this week are timely and news relevant. Together, they paint a portrait of global humanity that鈥檚 different from the image of division and discord regularly portrayed by media headlines and social media feeds. This is the Monitor鈥檚 view of the world.
It has you shredding the waves of West Africa and waiting for a minibus taxi (maybe even a quiet, electric one) on the streets of Nairobi, Kenya. It brings you back to your first apartment (the laundry room is where?) and into outer space. (We鈥檒l leave it to you to make conclusions about whether UFOs exist 鈥� but we鈥檒l tell you all about the newly declassified 161 files of government documents focusing on that possibility.)
Other stories wind through the housing markets of South Korea and the American South, and into Mexico City, where a puppet show for kids has captured grown-up attention. We go to Kosovo, where a group of women has defiantly claimed lives of joy and agency in the years since they lost their husbands in war. And we stop in Tybee Island, Georgia, where teenagers are making their own claims to the towns and streets where they live 鈥� in a way that鈥檚 presenting both challenges and opportunities for communities.
The stories in our magazine this week are timely and news relevant. And together, they paint a portrait of global humanity that鈥檚 different from the image of division and discord regularly portrayed by media headlines and social media feeds.
This is the Monitor鈥檚 view of the world.
