Media Literacy Challenge #2: Corroboration
In 1983 Stanislav Petrov’s decision to “corroborate” the information his computer was giving him may have averted nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Petrov was the lieutenant colonel on duty at a Soviet command center responsible for monitoring Soviet early-warning satellites. When his computer told him the U.S. had just launched 5 intercontinental ballistic missiles that would make landfall in under 25 minutes, he had almost no time to react carefully….
