Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves (standing in uniform, center right), Chief of Manhattan Engineering District in which first atomic bomb was developed, and Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer (leaning forward with hat), Director of Los Alamos Atomic Bomb Project, and physicist at CA Technological Institute, view the base of the steel tower on which the first atomic bomb hung when tested near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in July. Credit: Bettman/Getty Images
A story once buried in wartime secrecy is reaching new audiences in “Bombshell,” in which Felecia Ross, an associate professor in the School of Communication, helped uncover the Black press’ fight for the truth about radiation sickness.
The 90-minute documentary explains how the United States government minimized the effects of radiation sickness after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while many mainstream news organizations repeated the government’s version of the effects.?
Starting in the spring semester of 2022, Ross said she gathered students and began conducting research through historical archives and uncovered stories that ultimately helped shape the film and earned Ross a featured role in the documentary.
“Felecia [Ross] and her class researched, and they did an amazing job,” said Gaia De Simoni, co-producer of “Bombshell.” “So, we will always be grateful to what they did.”
Ross said producers approached her to dig deeper into how a Black press journalist, Charles H. Loeb of the Cleveland Call & Post, challenged mainstream media and exposed the government’s cover-up of radiation sickness.
“For a long time, I was listed as a field researcher for this,” Ross said. “I was gathering names, and submitting them to the producers, and they made contact — long story short, [a producer] said, ‘Why don’t you be in the documentary?’”
What began as an ordinary communication class soon became a hands-on research study for Ohio State students, helping Ross with her research through examining newspaper databases, as well as reviewing coverage from Black newspapers and national outlets.
“You always gather more stuff than you actually use,” Ross said. “[We] looked through the databases at Ohio State, looked at the ones containing Japanese newspapers and some mainstream newspapers, such as the New York Times, as well as the Black newspapers that were in that database.”
One of the most revealing discoveries, Ross said, was the complexity of news articles at the time. Alongside stories about the devastation of the bombings also came the celebration of Black scientists who contributed to the Manhattan Project, a top-secret project in the U.S. during World War II that aimed to create the first nuclear weapons before Nazi Germany.
“While they recognize the devastating effects of the bomb, they also recognize that as a result of that, the war ended,” Ross said. “They recognize that Black people are as capable as anyone else, and they had the scientific knowledge to this important project.”
Ross said proper journalism holds power over things we don’t personally experience, but receive from the mass media.
“It reminds us of the importance of journalism,” Ross said. “This is one of the many efforts to control the information about the war and the war efforts. They most definitely wanted the mass media at that time to not do anything that’s going to jeopardize public support for the war effort.”
Ross and De Simoni said they hope the film sparks viewer’s curiosity and critical thinking.
“I think they could learn to be skeptical and to always question what the government tells us,” De Simoni said.
Bombshell is available to stream for free on the PBS website.?
