Skip To Main Content
John Mecklin on Muck Rack

John Mecklin

Verified
Paonia, Santa Barbara
As seen in: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Daily Mail, Reuters, The Atlantic, Environmental Communication, Taylor & Francis Online, Educational Studies, Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy, Flipboard, The Japan Times, Foreign Policy Magazine and
Covers:  nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies that pose an existential threat to humanity.
Doesn't Cover: Everything else.
Editor in Chief @BulletinAtomic. Ex-Miller-Mccune/PacifStandard, High Country News, SF Weekly. Email: jmecklin@thebulletin.org Tips: Signal to meckdevil.11

Get in touch with John

Contact John, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.

Learn more about Muck Rack

Actions

Share this page

John Mecklin’s Biography

Read Full Bio →

I’ve been a journalist focused on the public interest for 30 years. Right now, I’m the editor in chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, where I’m lucky enough to edit the world’s leading experts on nuclear weapons and energy, climate change and biological threats to humanity. I’ve also been a correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review. In my last full-time gig, I was the head editor of Miller-McCune, a nonprofit national public affairs magazine (now known as Pacific Standard).

…

John Mecklin’s Journalist Portfolio

Disarm and Modernize

Disarm and Modernize

In the early decades of the Cold War, NATO made arrangements to bury what were known as atomic demolition mun…

View article →
Commentary: The North Korean nuclear 'crisis' is an illusion

Commentary: The North Korean nuclear 'crisis' is an illusion

Although it has involved disturbing events - ballistic missile launches, nuclear weapons tests, military exer…

View article →
A fault-finding mission

A fault-finding mission

SANTA BARBARA, CA - When it comes to public service, journalists do some of their best work when focused on t…

View article →
An interview with Ted Koppel on the meaning of The Day After - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

An interview with Ted Koppel on the meaning of The Day After - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

In 1983, Ted Koppel was fairly early in what became a 25-year run as the anchor and managing editor of Nightl…

View article →
A talk with the Bulletin's new executive chair, Jerry Brown - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

A talk with the Bulletin's new executive chair, Jerry Brown - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Jerry Brown has been a fact of California public life for so long that countless news outlets have found his …

View article →

Articles

The political implications of Hiroshima’s scarred “maidens”

|
By John Mecklin Verified
| Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
On May 7, 1955, 25 young Japanese women arrived by airplane at Travis Airfield in California. They had flown there from Iwakuni Airbase in Tokyo a few days prior, with a layover in Honolulu.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

How artificial intelligence threatens the news industry’s ability to report on existential risks—including those posed by nuclear weapons and AI

|
By John Mecklin Verified
| Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The irony is inescapable. Months after the last nuclear arms control agreement between Russia and the US expired, tech industry leaders are citing Cold War nuclear verification as a model for regulating the safety of artificial intelligence. Marina Favaro, leader of the Anthropic Institute, and Jack Clark, a co-founder of Anthropic, have called on their industry to ‘build a “brake pedal”’ because AI is approaching a frontier where humans may lose control as machines develop themselves.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

AI for peace: In Rome, Nobel laureates call for disarming AI and nuclear weapons

|
By François Diaz-Maurin, John Mecklin Verified
| nuclear-news.net
AI for peace: In Rome, Nobel laureates call for disarming AI and nuclear weapons Bulletin, By François Diaz-Maurin, John Mecklin | Analysis | July 17, 2026 ROME—In a future nuclear crisis, the speed of artificial intelligence may leave little room for human judgment or decision-making. Other AI impacts—its potential to empower destabilizing cyber-attacks or allow for the near-instantaneous generation of disinformation—increase the odds of such a crisis occurring in the first place.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?
See all 611 licensed articles (617 Total)

Interview

See all →

What was your first job as a journalist?

I was a reporter for the Williamson County Sun, then a rural county north of Austin, Texas.

What's the funniest news-related #hashtag you've seen?

#muckrackinterview

Why did you become a journalist?

I wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be paid.