news
Hosted by The Christian Science Monitor · news · EN-US · 185 episodes
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.
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Contact path
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Booking probability
36%
Guest openness
Selective
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Signup to Generate a PitchWho 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 is hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. The show has published 185 episodes to date.
Recent episodes include "Three Days That Shook the World" (14 August 2026), "He Said, Xi Said" (22 May 2026), and "Imagining First Contact" (3 April 2026).
Why We Wrote This publishes roughly every two weeks across 185 episodes.
Booking probability for Why We Wrote This is 36%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. Why We Wrote This requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. Why We Wrote This's contact route on record: verified email.
The strongest fits for Why We Wrote This are News, Magazine & Book Publishing. Why We Wrote This has a news audience.
The Christian Science Monitor hosts Why We Wrote This, a news show with 185 episodes published.
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Why We Wrote This
Daniel Sneider was the Monitor’s Moscow bureau chief 35 years ago this month when Kremlin hard-liners grabbed Mikhail Gorbachev at a dacha in Crimea, in a short-lived coup attempt. In this special episode, we surface...
Why We Wrote This
This month’s Trump-Xi summit in Beijing was an important plot point in the long and complex arc of U.S.-China relations. In this episode, Ann Scott Tyson, the Monitor’s Beijing bureau chief, joins host Matt Bell to...
Why We Wrote This
Movies about aliens have fascinated audiences for decades. But two new movies about alien life – “Project Hail Mary” and “Disclosure Day” – led Monitor culture writer Stephen Humphries to wonder, What does our...
Why We Wrote This
Amid recent ICE operations in Portland, Maine, Monitor staff writer Cameron Pugh and Director of Photography Alfredo Sosa traveled to see how Mainers were responding in the face of the immigration enforcement surge. But...
Why We Wrote This
In our last episode, we spoke with a veteran of Olympics coverage, in Milan for his eighth Games. This week, we sit down with an Olympics rookie, also in Milan, who has brought to bear the reporting skills she honed...
Why We Wrote This
With the 2026 Milan Cortina Games, Mark Sappenfield has now covered eight Olympics. Those include four previous Winter Games – in Salt Lake City, Turin, Vancouver, and Sochi. In this episode, Mark, the Monitor’s global...
Why We Wrote This
For a few generations of newsmakers and newsgatherers, the Monitor Breakfast has been a place to come together over a meal and parse the big issues of the day. In this episode, the host of this storied event joins her...
Why We Wrote This
In this episode, Howard LaFranchi, a U.S.-based diplomacy writer for the Monitor who’s also an old Latin America hand, talks about waking to the news of Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela and working through how he...
Why We Wrote This
The Golden State is politically blue, and it’s a leader in green energy. It also has a foothold in crude. Reporter Simon Montlake went to a SoCal town built by oil – and to a festival called “Oildorado,” which...
Why We Wrote This
The cranberry, with its short seasonal star turn, has a compelling history as a North American fruit. Growing the crop is a tricky business – climate-sensitive, naturally collaborative – with some old practices but also...
Why We Wrote This
Sarah Matusek didn’t wake up one recent morning expecting that her day would include driving a getaway car. Reporting can be like that. In this episode, Monitor immigration writer Sarah Matusek talks with host Clay...
Why We Wrote This
Taylor Luck, an Amman, Jordan-based writer for The Christian Science Monitor, recently joined Christa Case Bryant, the Monitor’s editor, on our Daily podcast to talk about his dynamic beat. This episode of “Why We Wrote...
Why We Wrote This
You can’t go home again. Except maybe you can, for an open-hearted second look that applies lessons in listening gained during years of immersion abroad. Scott Baldauf, a Monitor staff reporter who’s been operating at a...
Why We Wrote This
We’re back from our hiatus! In this episode, we talk with Mark Sappenfield, the Monitor’s former top editor turned roaming Europe reporter and watcher of global trends. Find out what that shift has been like, and what...
Why We Wrote This
Nairobi is like many cities. It’s vibrant but chaotic. Well-functioning here, showing cracks in its infrastructure there. In this episode we go behind writer Erika Page’s reporting of a tale of two (satellite) cities...
Why We Wrote This
A lot of technology, including some that ultimately makes us “greener,” calls for extractive practices and carries upfront costs. Its use slurps resources. But it also makes us productive and provides essential support...
Why We Wrote This
How does a Saskatchewan farmer dreaming of a better life end up in rural Russia? In this episode, the Monitor’s Fred Weir, a Canadian journalist with 40 years in Russia, talks about how he found and profiled a new kind...
Why We Wrote This
What does the hit Apple TV+ show that could be thought of as “Black Mirror” meets “Office Space” tell us about perceptions of workplace culture and Generation Z trends like “boreout”? About work with purpose and...
Why We Wrote This
How does a justice reporter stay focused when nearly every politics story seems to have intricate – and sometimes massive – legal ramifications? Avoid loaded phrasing. Keep it clinical. And remember to breathe. Henry...
Why We Wrote This
What does good policing looks like when it comes to managing sometimes bristly human interactions at street protests or in rowdy sports stadiums? Writer Simon Montlake and photographer Alfredo Sosa learned in Columbus...
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