Going Web-First at The Christian Science Monitor: A Three-Part Study of Change

Abstract

This article is a case study of The Christian Science Monitor’s move to a Web-first publication after the close of its print daily. We focus on three key points in the change process, which we observed through field visits to the newsroom: the first visit occurred before the switch to Web-first, the second visit just a few months afterward, and the third and final visit a few months after the introduction of a new content management system. Our goal was twofold: first, to understand what it meant to these journalists to go through such a change, and second, to understand the impact of the change on journalistic and organizational values.