Covering Nuclear Weapons

Understanding nuclear weapons and their politics is no easy task, especially for journalists on deadline. Here are some sites that will help you cover/report/edit stories about nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons programs (if you know of others, send them to poynter@sree.net).

Non-Proliferation Project at Carnegie Endowment for Peace Studies: An excellent starting point, with daily news updates and detailed backgrounders on the Koreas, Iran, Iraq, South Asia, etc. It covers all types of weapons of mass destruction, not just the nuclear kind. Look for the lists of online resources and the charts and maps that give you an instant picture of what’s going on around the world.The hundreds (or is it thousands?) of articles are searchable by country or weapon type, which is what a reporter trying to catch up quickly needs. The project is directed by Joseph Cirincione, who has become a familiar TV pundit.

Nuclear Control Institute: This site explains the problems of plutonium and uranium proliferation and helps monitor the spread of weapons and material. It’s run by Paul Leventhal, who has been dealing with these issues even before the Institute’s founding in 1981.

WorldAtom, the site of the IAEA: The International Atomic Energy Agency’s site has a playful name but is very serious. Lots of resources, publications, and an extensive set of databases make it a must-visit site.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: This site is most famous for its nuclear clock, which the scientists set as we get closer to theoretical annihilation (current time: seven minutes to midnight — same time as 55 years ago, when the clock debuted). You can also read articles from the magazine.

NuclearFiles.org: This site from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is an archive of the history of the nuclear age.

TerrorismAnswers.com on “Loose Nukes”: A quick way to understand the issue of loose nuclear weapons from the Council on Foreign Relations (see Jon Dube’s review of this useful site).

And, finally, knowing I might get complaints that many of the organizations above have the word “peace” in them, here are the Google results for the phrase: “praise of nuclear weapons” (without the quote marks).

Have a site you want to recommend? Write to poynter@sree.net (with your name and affiliation; I prefer to hear about sites you are not connected with).

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