Study: Newspapers neutral about nuclear weapons
A recent study looking at Ukraine-Russia war coverage in three international newspapers showed that when discussing nuclear weapons, The New York Times, The Guardian (UK), and the Global Times (China)  “mainly adopted a neutral tone toward nuclear weapons while emphasizing systemic and operational values.” The study said that “their news coverage did not vigorously criticize Russia’s nuclear threats” even though “they all reported that Russia’s adjustments to its national nuclear forces were on high alert and its nuclear military exercises.”

From a peace journalism perspective, these findings are alarming. 

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Emphasizing “systemic and operational values” of nuclear weapons instead of the weapons’ moral repugnancy is hardly peace journalism that gives society a chance to value non-violent responses to conflict. Instead, sterile discussions of nuclear hardware normalize these weapons, and more broadly, the militarization that frames nuclear escalation. 

Peace journalism instead would give at least comparable coverage to the moral and ethical aspects of using these weapons, constantly reminding the reader of the armageddon that will ensue if they’re ever used. Nuclear weapons must never be normalized. Instead of this “operational and systemic” coverage, a peace journalist would explore solutions to both underlying conficts, and to the proliferation of nuclear weapons themselves. 

PJ reporting could also include bridge-building reporting that rejects ‘us vs. them’ models while instead seeking common ground. In a world saturated with nuclear weapons, the common ground should be easy to find: if these weapons are used, our world and everything in it is destroyed.

The study by authors Yu Guo, Xiubin Duan, and Xiaodong Yang also found that two of the papers (The New York Times and Global Times) portrayed the Russia-Ukraine war using war journalism frames, whereas  the Guardian used more peace journalism framing. The Guardian’s PJ framing manifested itself with coverage that highlighted “the war’s invisible impacts and multifaceted interests,” leading to opportunities to “foster positive dialog between conflicting parties," according to the authors. 

This study, Valuing or devaluing nuclear weapons in the war journalism: a cross-national comparative content analysis of news coverage during the Russian war in Ukraine, was published in the Humanities and Social Sciences Communications journal.