Monitor Night Live: A Global Topic for a Global Audience
On February 25, the College’s beloved and respected Monitor Night Live went virtual and welcomed nearly 1,100 attendees from 12 countries.
This year’s theme focused on the recent “21 in ’21: Coming of Age in a Pandemic” global report in The Christian Science Monitor. The series follows a dozen 21-year-olds from around the world, documenting the challenges they face navigating the pandemic and how it is likely to shape their generation in the future.
The panel included editor Mark Sappenfield and correspondents Ryan Lenora Brown (South Africa), Scott Peterson (Middle East), and Ann Scott Tyson (China). Principia College President John Williams served as the evening’s host. The event opened with a video tribute to former Monitor correspondent and Principia College President Dr. George Moffett (C’65) who started Monitor Night Live in 1997, during his first year as College President. The video highlighted Moffett’s vision and standard of excellence for the event, the longstanding relationship between the Monitor and the College, and the event’s significant impact on the Principia community.
President Williams launched the discussion with Brown, based in Johannesburg, who had the idea for “21 in ’21.” Focusing on 21-year-olds in particular would give readers insight into what it is like for the world to stop at a coming-of-age moment for young adults. Across the globe, 21 is the average age for many significant life events— whether finishing education and starting a first job in America, completing mandatory military conscription in Israel, or having a first child in South Africa.
Brown noted that major world events during adolescence or young adulthood often define a generation—9/11, Watergate, Vietnam, World War II, etc. “We wanted to see, as journalists, in real-time, what does that look like for people coming of age now during this huge global event,” Brown said. “I wanted to do something that would harness the global reach that The Christian Science Monitor has.”
While each subject’s living environment, family dynamic, and educational status differed, there were poignant similarities. Brown noted that technology became a lifeline to the outside world for these young people during an isolating time. But they also found it exhausting. “This is a generation of digital natives who’ve had tech at their fingertips their whole lives,” Brown said. “I thought if anybody would weather this pandemic without getting exhausted from it, it would be them. But they all had this profound craving for human contact and face-to-face interactions.”
Another commonality was the feeling of being caught between two lives: life before the pandemic with the future they imagined for themselves and life during the pandemic where that “future” wasn’t getting any closer. “Those themes were all over the world,” Brown said.
The series used an “as told to” approach, relying on first-person narrative. Sappenfield noted the timeliness and effectiveness of this style. “At a time when we’re thirsting for so much human connection, the desire of [this series] was about delivering people’s voices unfiltered,” he said. “The whole idea was to get [the journalist] out of the picture. . . This allowed us to sit in the living room with these people in an unfiltered way that I’ve not seen in the Monitor before.”
The panel shifted to answering questions presented by several current College students, and then President Williams wished everyone a “good night” or “good morning”—depending on the participants’ time zones.
This year’s Monitor Night Live panel was part of a full week of virtual events that included the reporters and Sappenfield visiting classes; a virtual book talk with Monitor book editor April Austin; a metaphysical talk for students with Sappenfield; a journalism career event; and a special student-only event with four of the 21-year-olds featured in the Monitor’s series. Many of the events, including Monitor Night Live, were recorded. Click here for access to these recordings.