Why We Wrote This

Emmanuel Macron’s push for retirement reform has brought the French into the streets in numbers that have been surprisingly vast, even for a country where protest is baked into the culture. How Paris-based writer Colette Davidson sized up why the movement is broadening, explored how hope shines through the anger, and gave space to the less popular perspective that the numbers may add up to a need for reform. Hosted by Clay Collins.

Stories of the U.S. West’s water woes often run from the feast-or-famine saga of snowpack to overdrawn aquifers and conflict over a resource. In this episode, the Monitor’s Mountain West writer, Sara Matusek, talks with host Clay Collins about how she found and told a story of responsibility and ingenuity, of careful stewardship and agency that brings some hope.

For more women to become collegiate athletic directors, decisionmakers must be intentional about creating opportunities – especially for women who have already put in the work. Ira Porter, who covers higher education for the Monitor, spoke with host Clay Collins about reporting on an eight-college HBCU conference that’s modeling leadership on gender equality in a male-dominated field.

Predictive bots using ChatGPT technology are one of the grabbier forms of artificial intelligence, with its ever deepening tentacles into daily life. How does a Monitor writer take on issues of ethics and trust around a disruptive technology that’s at once alluring and very disconcerting? Laurent Belsie joins host Clay Collins.

Smart, contextual analysis. A high fiber news-diet supplement for a fast-info age. A unique, universal lens. All hallmarks of the Monitor approach. But how can a ‘slow news’ approach accommodate a go-go news cycle that whipsaws the world’s attention – and demands the Monitor’s too? Managing Editor Amelia Newcomb joins host Clay Collins.

One community’s struggle to come to terms with enormous loss became a powerful story about forgiveness – including of people not quite ready yet to forgive. That made it the most universal of stories. Reporter Sara Miller Llana spoke with host Clay Collins about her process, and about producing the hardest story she’d ever done.

This year’s Oscar nominations delivered a nope for “Nope.” And Viola Davis was overlooked. But there were five nods for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Commentator Ken Makin spoke with host Clay Collins for an update of this encore presentation of our Black Hollywood episode from December. It’s Ken’s take on what this year’s Academy Awards tell us about a slow path to progress and representation.

Actively reporting from Ukraine, and with a foreign correspondent’s pedigree that includes stints from Rwanda to Kabul to Fallujah to Mogadishu, Scott Peterson has developed a deep skill set around covering conflicts with humility, respect, and sensitivity. He spoke with host Clay Collins about why Monitor war stories are different.

Public-school teachers run on passion for their work and for the kids in their classrooms. That work is vital to a thriving society. But teachers also are widely regarded as being underpaid – often moonlighting to get by. A Monitor education writer looks at a push to create a higher baseline for compensation in a story that really extends to equality and fairness. Hosted by Clay Collins.

The notion of assistance in dying as an act of mercy is ancient. Now it has become part of a global debate that’s taking a variety of forms, and that ultimately is about what a caring society truly looks like. How a team of Monitor writers parsed that, with care and compassion. Hosted by Samantha Laine Perfas.