Vincent Kiernan is Dean of the Metropolitan School of Professional Studies at The Catholic University of America. His book, Atomic Bill: A Journalist's Dangerous Ambition in the Shadow of the Bomb, examines the fraught career of New York Times journalist William L. Laurence, the man recruited by the government to write their press materials to be distributed on that day that the nuclear bomb leveled Hiroshima.

Rina Lokaj sits down with Kiernan to discuss the history laid out in his book as well as Laurence's complicated legacy, including the influence of propaganda on journalists, the relationship between science and the media, and the importance of ethics.