Robert John Hughes was a British-born American journalist, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Indonesia and the Overseas Press Club Award for an investigation into the international narcotics traffic. He served as editor of The Christian Science Monitor and The Deseret News and is a former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Hughes has written two books and for years wrote a nationally syndicated column for The Christian Science Monitor.

The Christian Science Monitor (CSM), commonly known as The Monitor, is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the new religious movement Christian Science, Church of Christ, Scientist.