James Fallows

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Jim Fallows

| image = James-Fallows-(edit).jpg

| caption = Fallows at the 2010 National Chinese Language Conference

| office = White House Director of Speechwriting

| president = Jimmy Carter

| term_start = January 20, 1977

| term_end = November 24, 1978

| predecessor = Robert T. Hartmann

| successor = Bernard W. Aronson

| birth_name = James Mackenzie Fallows

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1949|8|2}}

| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.

| death_date =

| death_place =

| party = Democratic

| spouse = Deborah Fallows

| children = 2

| education = Harvard University (BA)
The Queen's College, Oxford

}}

James Mackenzie Fallows{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/fallows-james-m-1949-james-fallows-james-mackenzie-fallows-jim-fallows|title=Fallows, James M. 1949- (James Fallows, James Mackenzie Fallows, Jim Fallows) | Encyclopedia.com|website=www.encyclopedia.com}} (born August 2, 1949) is an American writer and journalist.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/at-5-neanderthal-you-are-an-outlier/263475/|title='At 5% Neanderthal, You Are an Outlier'|website=The Atlantic |date=11 October 2012 }} He is a former national correspondent for The Atlantic. His work has also appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and The American Prospect, among others. He is a former editor of U.S. News & World Report, and as President Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter for two years was the youngest person ever to hold that job.Pilkington, Ed. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/20/barack-obama-inauguration-us-speech Obama inauguration: Words of history ... crafted by 27-year-old in Starbucks], The Guardian, January 20, 2009.Fallows, James. [http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/12/i_am_shocked_to_see_a_factual.php "Factual Error in Washington Post"], James Fallows The Atlantic blog, December 18, 2008.

Fallows has been a visiting professor at a number of universities in the U.S. and China, and has held the Chair in U.S. Media at the United States Studies Centre at University of Sydney. He is the author of eleven books, including National Defense (1981), for which he received the 1983 National Book Award, Looking at the Sun (1994), Breaking the News (1996), Blind into Baghdad (2006), Postcards from Tomorrow Square (2009), China Airborne (2012), and the national best-seller Our Towns (2018), which was co-written with his wife, Deborah Fallows, and made into an HBO documentary of the same name in 2021.

Biography

File:James Fallows - NARA - 178392 (cropped).tif staff photo]]

Fallows was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Jean (née Mackenzie) and James Albert Fallows, a physician.{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2008/11/james-a-fallows-1925-2008/9060/|title=James A. Fallows, 1925–2008|first=James|last=Fallows|website=The Atlantic |date=8 November 2008 }} He was raised in Redlands, California, and graduated from Redlands High School.{{Cite web |date=2019-04-18 |title=James Fallows, Redlands' most famous writer, named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences |url=https://www.redlandscommunitynews.com/news/james-fallows-redlands-most-famous-writer-named-to-the-american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences/article_9c861d5c-61f3-11e9-9575-5fb15f6c6723.html |access-date=2024-04-01 |website=Redlands News |language=en}} He studied American history and literature at Harvard College, where he was the editor of the daily newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. From 1970 to 1972, Fallows studied economics at The Queen's College, Oxford, as a Rhodes scholar. He subsequently worked as an editor and writer for The Washington Monthly and Texas Monthly magazines.{{cite web |url=https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/james-fallows-give-2017-commencement-address |title=James Fallows to Give 2017 Commencement Address |publisher=The University of Vermont |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190801172708/https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/james-fallows-give-2017-commencement-address |archive-date=2019-08-01 |access-date=2019-08-01 |quote=He has also served as the editor of U.S. News & World Report and on the staffs of The Washington Monthly and Texas Monthly.}}

For the first two years of the Carter administration he was Carter's chief speechwriter. At age 27, he became the youngest person in history to hold that position. From 1979 through 1996, he was the Washington Editor for The Atlantic Monthly (now The Atlantic). For two years of that time he was based in Texas, and for four years in Asia. He wrote for the magazine about immigration, defense policy, politics, economics, computer technology, and other subjects. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Awards five times and won in 2003, for "The Fifty-First State?" (The Atlantic, November 2002), which was published six months before the invasion of Iraq and laid out the difficulties of occupying the country. He won the National Book Award for National Defense and won a NY Emmy in 2010 for his role as host of a documentary series, Doing Business in China.Fallows, James. [https://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2010/04/more-emmy-news-updated/39213/ "More Emmy News"], James Fallows The Atlantic blog, April 20, 2010.

Fallows's most influential articles have concerned military policy and military procurement, the college admissions process, technology, China and Japan, and the American war in Iraq. Early in his career, he wrote an article called "What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?" (Washington Monthly, October 1975). It described the "draft physical" day at the Boston Navy Yard in 1970, in which Fallows and his Harvard and MIT classmates overwhelmingly produced reasons for medical exemptions, while the white working-class men of Chelsea, Massachusetts were approved for service. He argued that the class bias of the Vietnam draft, which made it easy for him and for others from influential and affluent families to avoid service, prolonged the war and that this was a truth many opponents of the war found convenient to overlook.Fallows, James (1977). "What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?" In Robbins, Mary Susannah, ed. (2007, orig. 1999). Against the Vietnam War: Writings by Activists. London and Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 159–164. {{ISBN|978-0-7425-5914-1}}.

In the 1980s and 1990s Fallows was a frequent contributor of commentaries to National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and since 2009 he has been the regular news analyst for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. From 1996 to 1998, he was the editor of US News & World Report. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Washington D.C. During the 2000–2001 academic year, Fallows taught at the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and in 2010 he was the Vare Writer in Residence at the University of Chicago. Starting in the 2010 academic year, he is a visiting Professor in U.S. Media at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.Steketee, Mike. [https://archive.today/20121215190541/http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,,25057637-7582,00.html "Urgent Need to Save Quality Journalism, Professor Warns"], The Australian, February 16, 2009.

Fallows is an instrument-rated pilot.{{cite web |url=http://www.airplanegeeks.com/2016/01/20/airplanegeeks-385-even-more-intellectually-stimulating-than-useful/ |title=Airplane Geeks Podcast |date=20 January 2016 |access-date=2019-07-31 |quote= Jim is an instrument-rated pilot and owner of a Cirrus SR22. }} In Free Flight, published in 2001, he described the new generation of "personal jets" and other advanced aircraft coming onto the market from Eclipse Aviation and Cirrus Design, as well as the story of Cirrus founders brothers Alan and Dale Klapmeier and how they became involved in aviation.{{cite web|url= https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/interviews/int2001-05-25.htm|title=The Soul of a New Flying Machine|website=The Atlantic |date= 25 May 2001|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200114035956/https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/interviews/int2001-05-25.htm |archive-date=14 January 2020|access-date= 18 September 2018}} Fallows has received numerous honorary degrees, including from the University of Utah, the University of Maryland, the University of Redlands, Northwestern University, Ursinus College, and in 2017 the University of Vermont.{{cite web|url=https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/uvm-names-honorary-degree-recipients-2017-commencement|title=UVM Names Honorary Degree Recipients for 2017 Commencement|access-date= 18 September 2020}}

Fallows has had a long interest in technology, both writing about and helping to develop it. He's taken a special interest in personal information management software, going back to Lotus Agenda which he glowingly reviewed for The Atlantic in 1992 ("Of all the computer programs I have tried, Agenda is far and away the most interesting, and is one of the two or three most valuable").{{Citation | publisher = Bob Newell | url = http://www.bobnewell.net/agenda/atlantic.txt.html | title = Agenda | newspaper = The Atlantic}}. During the operating system wars of the early and mid-nineties, Fallows used and wrote about IBM's Operating System/2 (OS/2) and its battles with MS Windows, often frequenting the Canopus forum and online community on CompuServe. In 1999, he spent six months at Microsoft designing software for writers. More recently, he has written about the design of the Open Source Applications Foundation's information manager, code-named Chandler. He was the on-stage host for the IDG Corporation's "Agenda" conference (no relation to Agenda software) in the early years of the 2000s (decade) and of Google's "Zeitgeist" conference starting in 2005. He has written regular technology columns for The New York Times and The Atlantic.

In September 2021, Fallows launched a Substack site called Breaking the News, whose title was based on his 1996 book of the same name.

Politics

Fallows, a former speechwriter for Democratic President Jimmy Carter, has identified himself as a Democrat{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1992/09/15/put-down-that-bloody-shirt-mr-president/385041a4-83d1-4e8a-b685-8cc033649aba/ |title=Put Down That Bloody Shirt, Mr. President |last=Fallows |first=James |date=15 September 1992 |newspaper=The Washington Post |quote=Now the necessary disclaimers: I am a Democrat, and I hope Clinton wins.}} and has been described by Politico and The Hill, among other publications, as a liberal.{{cite news|last=Gerstein |first=Josh |title=A 'tipping point' in terror fight? |url=http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=760EA5E4-AA78-6CD3-1508711D883C4682 |access-date=21 September 2011 |publisher=Politico |date=22 November 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120327030128/http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=760EA5E4-AA78-6CD3-1508711D883C4682 |archive-date=27 March 2012 }}{{cite news|last=Wilson|first=Reid|title=Dem primary victor for ex-Emanuel seat likely to win general|url=https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/1933-dem-primary-victor-for-ex-emanuel-seat-likely-to-win-general/|access-date=21 September 2011|newspaper=The Hill|date=23 February 2009}} According to journalist Howard Fineman, Fallows also wrote policy memos to Democratic President Bill Clinton.{{cite news|title=Capital Gang Sunday: The Forbes Candidacy|newspaper=CNN|date=21 January 1996}} An article in The Futurist, a publication of the World Future Society, identifies Fallows as a radical centrist.Olson, Robert (January–February 2005)."[http://www.wfs.org/revsatinjf05.htm The Rise of 'Radical Middle' Politics] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120716184225/http://www.wfs.org/revsatinjf05.htm |date=2012-07-16 }}". The Futurist, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 45–47. Publication of the World Future Society. Retrieved 26 February 2013.

Awards

For the first paperback edition of National Defense, Fallows received a 1983 National Book Award for Nonfiction.[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1983 "National Book Awards – 1983"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-11.{{NoteTag|This was the award for paperback "General Nonfiction".
From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Awards history there were several nonfiction subcategories including General Nonfiction, with dual hardcover and paperback awards in most categories. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one.}}

He was a finalist at the National Magazine Award in the years 1988, 2006 (twice), 2007 and had won the award in 2003 for his article The Fifty-First State?.{{cite web |url = http://www.magazine.org/asme/magazine_awards/searchable_database/index.aspx |title = American Society of Magazine Editors – National Magazine Awards Database – Search 'James Fallows' |access-date = 2010-08-07 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110526232156/http://www.magazine.org/asme/magazine_awards/searchable_database/index.aspx |archive-date = 2011-05-26 |url-status = dead }} The documentary series On The Frontlines: Doing Business in China in which he participated as an editorial supervisor and co-host (together with Emily Chang) was awarded the 2010 Emmy Award.{{Cite web|url=https://www.google.com/logos/doodles/2021/googles-23rd-birthday-6753651837109087-2xa.gif|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725233529/http://www.nyemmys.org/attachments/wysiwyg/4292/2010_NY_Emmy_Awards_Winners_JUN7.pdf|url-status=dead|title=Google|archivedate=July 25, 2011|via=www.google.com}}

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.{{Cite web|url=https://www.amacad.org/news/2019-members-announcement|title=New 2019 Academy Members Announced|website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences|date=17 April 2019 }}

Genetic ancestry

In 2012, Fallows gained notice for the results of the testing of his genetic makeup. In addition to the fact that the lineage shown on the mitochondrial DNA of his mother's side did not resemble any other samples found in a large-scale study, it was shown that Fallows had an abnormally high percentage of Neanderthal ancestry, at 5% of his genes being of Neanderthal origin. This drew attention from numerous scientists.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/at-5-neanderthal-you-are-an-outlier/263475/|title='At 5% Neanderthal, You Are an Outlier'|first=James|last=Fallows|date=October 11, 2012|website=The Atlantic}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/neanderthal-me/263372/|title=Neanderthal Me|first=James|last=Fallows|date=October 9, 2012|website=The Atlantic}}

Personal life

Fallows is married to writer and researcher Deborah Fallows, with whom he has two sons.{{cite news|title=Weddings: Elizabeth Bennett and Thomas Fallows|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/fashion/weddings/15bennett.html|access-date=8 May 2018|work=The New York Times|date=14 February 2009|page=ST11}}{{cite web|title=Deb Fallows|url=http://www.deborahfallows.com/|access-date=8 May 2018}} The book Our Towns (2018) was co-authored and researched by the couple, which became the basis for an HBO documentary film in 2021.[https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/our-towns HBO - Our Towns]

Publications

= Books =

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?7575-1/more-us Booknotes interview with Fallows on More Like Us, April 6, 1989], C-SPAN| video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?165324-1/free-flight Presentation by Fallows on Free Flight, July 12, 2001], C-SPAN| video3 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?307016-1/china-airborne Presentation by Fallows on China Airborne, May 16, 2012], C-SPAN| video4 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?445994-5/washington-journal-james-deborah-fallows-discuss-our-towns Washington Journal interview with James and Deborah Fallows on Our Towns, May 25, 2018], C-SPAN}}

{{cite book |author=Fallows, James |title=The water lords: Ralph Nader's study group report on industry and environmental crisis in Savannah, Georgia |publisher=Grossman Publishers |year=1971}}
{{cite book |author1=Green, Mark |author2=Fallows, James |author3=Zwick, David |title=Who runs Congress? |location=New York |publisher=Bantam Books |year=1972}}
National Defense (1981). Random House. {{ISBN|0-394-51824-1}}
{{cite news |first=James |last=Fallows |title=M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story: Why the rifles jammed |date=June 1981 |magazine=The Atlantic |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/}} One of three excerpts from National Defense published in The Atlantic.
More Like Us: Making America Great Again (1989). Houghton Mifflin. {{ISBN|0-395-49857-0}}
Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System (1994). Vintage Paperback (reprint ed., 1995) {{ISBN|0-679-76162-4}}
Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy (1996). Pantheon Books. {{ISBN|0-679-44209-X}}. Vintage Paperback (1997) {{ISBN|0-679-75856-9}}
Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel (2001). PublicAffairs Paperback (2002) {{ISBN|1-58648-140-1}}
Blind into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq (2006). Vintage. {{ISBN|978-0-307-27796-1}}
Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China (2009) Knopf. {{ISBN|978-0-307-47262-5}}
China Airborne (2012) Random House. {{ISBN|978-0-375-42211-9}}
{{cite book |author1=Fallows, James |author2=Fallows, Deborah|title=Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America|publisher=Pantheon Books|year=2018}}

= Essays and reporting =

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?323590-6/washington-journal-james-fallows-state-armed-forces Washington Journal interview with Fallows on his article "The Tragedy of the American Military", January 7, 2015], C-SPAN}}

{{cite journal |last=Fallows |first=James |date= May 1979|author-mask=1|title=The Passionless Presidency: The trouble with Jimmy Carter's Administration |journal=The Atlantic |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1979/05/the-passionless-presidency/308516/}}
{{cite news|author=Fallows, James |author-mask=1|date= September 1992 |title=Put Down That Bloody Shirt, Mr. President |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1992/09/15/put-down-that-bloody-shirt-mr-president/385041a4-83d1-4e8a-b685-8cc033649aba/}}
{{cite journal |author=Fallows, James |author-mask=1 |date=February 1996 |title=Why Americans Hate the Media | journal=The Atlantic Monthly | url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/02/why-americans-hate-the-media/305060/}}
{{cite journal |author=Fallows, James |author-mask=1 |date=August 1996 |title=Throwing like a girl |department=Sport |journal=The Atlantic Monthly |volume=278 |issue=2 |pages=84–87 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/08/throwing-like-a-girl/306152/}}
{{cite journal |last=Fallows |first=James |date= June 2009|author-mask=1|title=Inexact opposite: a hotel in Beijing shows off China's ability to (almost) get it right |journal=The Atlantic |volume=303 |issue=5 |pages=28–29 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/06/beijing-rsquo-s-almost-perfect-hotel/7429/}}
{{cite journal |author=Fallows, James |author-mask=1 |date=August 2011 |title=In poll position |journal=American Review |url=http://americanreviewmag.com/opinions/In-poll-position |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120121173523/http://americanreviewmag.com/opinions/In-poll-position |archive-date=2012-01-21}}
{{cite journal |author=Fallows, James |author-mask=1 |date=December 2012 |title=My fellow Americans ... |department=Spotlight |journal=Vanity Fair |volume=628 |pages=134 |url=http://www.vanityfair.com/unchanged/2012/12/checkers-richard-nixon-theater}}
{{cite journal |author=Fallows, James |author-mask=1 |date=June 2013 |title=The art of paying attention [interview with Linda Stone] |department=Dispatches. Tech |journal=The Atlantic |volume=311 |issue=5 |pages=22, 24 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/the-art-of-paying-attention/309312/}}
{{cite journal |author=Fallows, James |author-mask=1 |date=June 2013 |title=The Fixer |journal=The Atlantic |volume=311 |issue=5 |pages=46–55 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/the-fixer/309324/}}
{{cite news|author=Fallows, James |author-mask=1|date= January 2015|title=The Tragedy of the American Military |journal=The Atlantic |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/12/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/}}
{{cite news|author=Fallows, James |author-mask=1|date= March 2016|title=How America Is Putting Itself Back Together |journal=The Atlantic |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/how-america-is-putting-itself-back-together/426882/}}
{{cite news|author=Fallows, James |author-mask=1|date= May 2018|title=The Reinvention of America|journal=The Atlantic |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/05/reinventing-america/556856/}}

Explanatory notes

References

External links

[https://fallows.substack.com/ Fallows's Substack website]
[http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/ Fallows's Atlantic website]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070819201946/http://wacsf.vportal.net/detail.cfm?fileid=4599 Audio of lecture delivered to the World Affairs Council of Northern California]
[http://chiasmos.uchicago.edu/events/fallows.shtml Audio/Video recording] of James Fallows on his book Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq as part of the University of Chicago's [https://web.archive.org/web/20070625145641/http://internationalstudies.uchicago.edu/wbh.shtml World Beyond the Headlines] series
{{C-SPAN|7344}}
{{IMDb name|1692811}}