Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists Editor: ‘Eat Your Heart Out, New Yorker!’

Leading up to next week’s National Magazine Awards, mediabistro.com is publishing a special package of our popular “So What Do You Do?” series with daily interviews of selected nominees, ranging from the well-known to obscure. Today we chat with Mark Strauss, editor of possibly the year’s most obscure nominee, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

So, what the hell is the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists anyway?

We’re the best magazine with the worst title. In its earliest days, the Bulletin was a newsletter. It was founded in 1945 by former Manhattan Project scientists who wanted to inform the public about the dangers of the escalating nuclear arms race. Our title is deceptive for two reasons: First, it implies that we’re an academic journal — which we’re not. We’re a glossy, full-color magazine targeted towards a mainstream readership. We tend to describe ourselves as a magazine with the credibility of a peer-reviewed journal. Second, we don’t devote our coverage exclusively to nuclear weapons and arms control. Our mandate is to provide readers with non-partisan, non-technical, but scientifically sound information that is critical to the debate on global security. And, of course, the Bulletin is famous worldwide for its iconic “Doomsday Clock,” which since 1947 has periodically moved back and forth to indicate how close we are to global catastrophe. In fact, the Bulletin was the inspiration for the title of Linkin Park’s forthcoming album, Minutes to Midnight. Eat your heart out, New Yorker.

So What Do You Do, Mark Straus, Editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists?

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