The first time I saw The Christian Science Monitor, I expected it to be chock full of wing-nut proselytizing, like, say, The Watchtower, that curious piece of rubbish the Jehovah’s Witnesses leave behind after you shoo them off your front porch.

What a pleasant shock it was, back in the day, to discover that this little broadsheet was a respectable, serious newspaper that publishes insightful exposes and often breaks major national stories. And they even had reading rooms, where you could wander in off the street, sit down in a quiet place and read the paper (or the religious books they provided) — how cool is that?

Yesterday the CSM announced that after 100 years, it will stop producing its newsprint edition and publish only on the Web. It finally makes too much sense economically and environmentally not to do that, and it’s only a matter of time before other national publications follow suit.  Read more...