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Rating: 
Summary: poorly written puff piece
Review: I am not a Christian Scientist and have no stake in the church arguments over media which Bridges documents.As I read the book, I was interested in the larger issues Bridges claims she will address: how do events at the CS Monitor reflect the situation of all US journalism? Sadly, Bridges seems so interested in defending the actions of her colleagues and herself that she doesn't really examine this larger issue. Also, the writing is terrible. The sentences are poorly constructed, and Bridges uses way too many unnecessary adjectives (perhaps forgetting that adjectives cannot substitute for evidence). By the time I finished, I felt that if she used the word "upshot" ("The upshot was . . .") one more time I would have to run screaming from the room. The only reason to read this book is to get a glimpse of the primary sources Bridges cites. Read the quotes and the footnotes--I'd skip the rest.
Rating:
Summary: Lacking in true resolutions
Review: I was very dissappointed in reading this book. There was more fact and information in the notes then the actual text, I felt the author was giving an over view of the other resource material she had found. I also found the book very one-sided. Defending the actions of the two key players. As someone who was also an employee of the Monitor Channel during this time, I was amazed at how many inacurate facts there were! As I finished the book, the only question I had was why did I read it?
Rating: 
Summary: Well researched, very informative piece of literature
Review: Susan Bridge provides information about a relatively "cloaked" period in the Christian Science movement, and although her book wasn't intended to inform church members about the happenings as they related to the church itself, it is an excellent vehicle for doing so.The book is a good read for those individuals interested in the area of media and the news, even though it draws some bleak conclusions for positive changes in the future in the way we receive our news. The recent Walters/Lewinsky interview is a chilling example of the direction we might be headed, but it is a must reading for every Christian Scientist who is interested in what took place in Boston from approximately 1984-1992.I think it is well written, well documented, and very interesting. I also felt she was fair in her writing and kept as impartial perspective about the entire situation as possible under the circumstances. She leaves questions to be answered by each reader. Was it a good direction? Was it overly expensive? Would it have been an additional or even a replacement medium for providing the quality of news Mary Baker Eddy desired when she founded the Christian Science Monitor--a newspaper that has not broken even financially for decades? Were individual personalities responsible for the failure? What other factors came into play in this whole scenario that impacted the concepts and their implementation.It certainly will make you think.
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