Newspapers: The Monitor's New Look

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In keeping with its subdued editorial policy, the Christian Science Monitor announced a modicum of change last week with a minimum of fanfare. Over coffee and pastry in Manhattan's Plaza Hotel, Editor in Chief Erwin D. Canham and other Monitor executives described the newspaper's new look to assembled newsmen.

The paper's eight-column page has been reduced to five, its 7½-point type enlarged to nine point. Black column rules have been removed, leaving wide swatches of white space. A pair of capsule news columns have been added. "Focus," appearing daily in the left-hand column of the front page, will summarize trends in politics, business, sports, science and the arts; "The News-Briefly," which appears on page 2, will capsule the day's events. With the addition of twelve reporters and some editorial shifts, Canham expects staffers to be freer than ever to write stories with a personal viewpoint, "producing a paper that will last."

Canham hopes that the changes that he and his staff have been perfecting for the past 2½ years (TIME, Jan. 8), will boost the Monitor's sagging circulation and put the paper, now subsidized by the Mother Church, on a self-sustaining basis. Other changes are planned, though one area of the paper is sure to remain the same: liquor and cigarette ads will continue to be banned, along with pictures of people smoking or drinking. Obituaries and the word death will appear as rarely as ever.