The "Christian Science Monitor", particularly during the McCarthy era, was a
highly influential newspaper at home and abroad though circulation figures
(approximately 167,000 per day) did not match those of other prestige and
popular press newspapers, such as the New York Times (341,000) and the Los
Angeles Times (573,000). ¹ This book focuses on the Monitor's coverage of Jo-
seph R. McCarthy, from the Senator's famous Lincoln Day speech on Febru-
ary 9, 1950 through his censure by the U.S. Senate on December 2, 1954. ² It
documents the Monitor's coverage of McCarthy and investigates the internal
decision-making process that led to the resolution of editorial policy disputes
at the newspaper This reveals how the Monitor dealt with the pressures
associated with McCarthyism, both editorially and with personnel.

The Monitor, in books written during and after the McCarthy era, ³ has
been credited as one of the early and consistent critics of the Wisconsin
Senator In fact, after Edward R. Murrow See It Now program about
McCarthy on CBS in March 1954, the famous broadcaster conceded that he
was now counted among several newspapers, magazines, and broadcast
radio and television stations singled out by McCarthy for criticism. The
Monitor was on the list Murrow read aloud. ⁴ And, just after the McCarthy
era, Time magazine wrote that "the Monitor was one of the few U.S. dailies
that consistently and searchingly matched balancing facts against the Wis-
consin Senator's strident fictions." ⁵ However, one of the most widely
quoted books written exclusively about press coverage of McCarthy, Joe
McCarthy and the Press by Edwin R. Bayley, questioned whether the Monitor

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