The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 391

BY TERRY ANN KNOPF When veteran TV newsman John Hart signed on at World Monitor, he thought he had found a sanctuary from network superficiality. But the program's priorities and its ties to the Christian Science Church have left him wondering whether there's any place for him in television. A nvpn Th nv AH1 nil CMAULI adrift John Hart isn't down-home folksy, like Dan Rather. John Hart isn't cuddly, Tom Brokaw. And John Hart isn't charming, like Peter Jennings.

In front of a camera, he is stiff, formal, and deadly serious, a lot like Edward R. Mur: row, the newscaster he most admires. And, just as the business ultimately devoured Murrow, Hart probably doesn't have much of a future in television, either. Especially if, as seems likely, he walks away from his job as anchor of World Monitor, the highly acclaimed but little-watched broadcast underwritten by the First Church of Christ, Scientist. (The nightly newscast airs locally on Channel 68 and is carried nationally on cable's Discovery Channel.) When Hart signed on as anchor ZVz years ago, he viewed World Monitor as a sanctuary from the increasingly superficial environment of network news, as a place where he could practice his kind of pure, self-effacing journalism.

This was a newscast whose vision extended beyond 10-second sound bites and the narrow physical confines of Washington. This was a newscast that would dare to make Tibet the lead story and insist on using subtitles when people spoke in a foreign language. This was a newscast whose idea of a jazzy "tease" was "Coming up: drinking water." For Monitor Television, the for-profit church affiliate that produces the program, Hart was an inspired choice. In a distinguished career spanning nearly three decades, he had worked as a correspondent and anchor at' CBS News (1960 to 1975) and at NBC News (1975 to 1987). Over the years, he had won recognition for his personal integrity, his Terry ann knopf is a boston-based free-lance writer who specializes in the media.

in-depth reporting, and his lean, lyrical writing style. But somewhere along the way, television news had changed, becoming less of a vehicle for reporting and more of a cash cow. The 1980s had ushered in a new era of corporate takeovers, market researchers, and bottom-line considerations. In October 1989, for example, the Washington Journalism Review, referring to the acquisition of NBC by General Electric Co. three years earlier, observed: "Dollar signs, not stars, are in GE's eyes." Network news was no longer a place for innocents, idealists, and intellectuals.

Perhaps it never had been. John Hart was a purist in a business that was no longer pure. "I feel like St John coming out of the wilderness," Hart declared at a Boston news conference announcing his arrival. World Monitor, he thought, would give him the time and resources to explore complex issues. Moreover, he would be working for an organization that had a reputation for serious, ethical journalism.

The audience size for World Monitor would remain small, numbering a minuscule 10,000 households locally and about 450,000 households nationally, according to the February 1991 Nielsen ratings. But at the start, the program drew critical raves. "The sense of substance is unmistakable. The sheer integrity of 'World Monitor' is invigorating," wrote New York Times TV critic John J. O'Connor.

Time magazine praised the program for its "meaty content and sober style of an earlier, less frantic TV era." And in 1988 and 1989, Hart was named to TV Guide's all-star team (best anchor: cable). Despite such accolades, Hart became disenchanted with the Monitor environment He has Continued on Page 55 Photograph by Yunghi KimThe Boston Globe 19.