The Stanley Center for Peace and Security’s Developing Story Project is a multi-year initiative to support, strengthen, and sustain reporting on nuclear weapons and related issues.
The Developing Story Project (DSP) is a multi-year initiative by the Stanley Center’s journalism and media program to support, strengthen, and sustain reporting on nuclear weapons and related issues. In surveying journalists, editors, and media professionals, the Stanley Center found several obstacles to covering nuclear weapons issues: limited funding and capacity, a perception that the topic is too technical, and a lack of training and community among journalists reporting on the topic.
But nuclear threats are on the rise as decades-old security alliances shift, established norms around testing weaken, and safeguards for preventing nuclear weapon use erode. More journalists need to be ready to report effectively on these issues from a variety of angles, and editors and newsrooms should be prepared to provide sustained coverage with relevance to their audiences. Nuclear weapons are not only a story about the grainy past or the hypothetical future. The risks, costs, and impacts are an ongoing story that needs ongoing coverage as details evolve. This is not just a headline or a breaking news alert, but a developing story.
The Developing Story Project is designed to encourage and support journalists, editors, and other media professionals to foster, strengthen, increase, and sustain reporting on nuclear weapons issues around the world—and to help them connect and collaborate with others in a community of practice. It also aims to begin engaging with the next generation of journalists and media-makers, including journalism students, to help build an on-ramp for new talent interested in covering this topic to find a community, resources, and learning opportunities as they enter the field.
Visit this page and follow the Stanley Center on Bluesky and LinkedIn to learn about upcoming opportunities co-organized by the Developing Story Project and partnering organizations.
The RevCon Reporters Group is an opportunity for journalists who are interested in reporting on nuclear weapons issues and want to learn alongside other journalists who are covering the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference (RevCon). Over the course of RevCon (April 27-May 22, 2026), the Stanley Center’s Developing Story Project offered a series of journalist- and expert-led virtual briefings to inform a community of journalists covering the conference about reporting on nuclear weapons issues.
Mark Leon Goldberg, seasoned journalist and host of Global Dispatches, a leading podcast about world affairs, was on location at the United Nations headquarters in New York to serve as a resource for journalists in the RevCon Reporters Group covering the conference.
The Developing Story Project is initiating a series of screenings of the documentary Bombshell in partnership with journalism schools across the country as part of an effort to bring journalism students and early career journalists into the Developing Story Project community. Bombshell, directed by Ben Loeterman, uncovers the fight to control the narrative around the use of nuclear weapons and the role of the press in bringing facts to light. Screenings will be accompanied by discussions with the filmmaking team, students, journalism scholars, and nuclear weapons experts.
The Developing Story Project co-organized several activities at the International Press Institute (IPI) 2025 World Congress in Vienna, Austria, for attendees to deepen their understanding of nuclear weapons issues and build reporting skills on this underreported topic.
Programming included a conference panel on covering nuclear weapons; a learning session and field trip to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Nuclear Safeguards Clean Lab in Seibersdorf; a workshop session on using Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) when reporting on nuclear issues; and a special screening of the PBS American Experience documentary Bombshell—uncovering the fight to control the narrative around the use of nuclear weapons and the role of the press in bringing facts to light—at a local cinema with a post-screening discussion featuring the filmmakers and a networking reception.
As the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the first use of nuclear weapons in war, 22 journalists from 18 countries gathered for the Developing Story Project’s first in-person training and community-building opportunity.
Programming included meeting with atomic bomb survivors, local journalists, and elected officials, as well as peer exchanges, group interviews with nuclear experts, a special screening of a documentary film, and touring the Hiroshima Peace Museum and Peace Memorial Park.
Read more about the Hiroshima Journalism Workshop.
The Stanley Center for Peace and Security, Asian American Journalists Association-Asia (AAJA-Asia), and the European Journalism Centre organized a series of virtual learning sessions for professional journalists in Europe and Asia about the stakes of and strategies for covering nuclear weapons-related issues.
These events kicked off the Developing Story Project! Virtual learning sessions were offered for journalists covering nuclear weapons issues in the Asian and European contexts and featured experienced journalists and nuclear experts as speakers.
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