S1E39 - James Fallows - Keeping a Level Head
We met with one of the preeminent figures of American journalism, James Fallows, to discuss equal parts world affairs and the craft of journalism. Fallows brings the perspective of a lengthy and illustrious career covering a vast array of domestic and international issues, including politics, technology, Asia, aviation and hometown America, to name a few. We touch on all of these to get his perspectives on Trump’s presidency and current legal challenges, AI, social media, US/China relations, working as Carter’s speech writer, the news industry in general, and much more. A believer that “transparency is the new objectivity,” Fallows openly acknowledges upfront the aspects of his background that are potentially relevant to his views. While today there are so many things happening at a distance that alarm us, Fallows ends by reminding us that he consistently finds great resilience and possibility when he goes local to get a closer look. His observations are informative and sober, but ultimately optimistic. Join us.
Biography
James Fallows is a long-time book and magazine writer. The most recent of his 12 books is Our Towns, co-authored with his wife, Deborah Fallows. It was a national best-seller and the basis of a 2021 HBO feature-length documentary of the same name. His 1981 book, National Defense, won the American Book Award in non-fiction, and his 1996 book Breaking the News is also the name of his current Substack site, https://fallows.substack.com/ He has written hundreds of articles for The Atlantic, and many for other magazines, including Wired, The New York Review of Books, and The New Yorker. His 2002 Atlantic article warning against an invasion of Iraq, "The Fifty-First State," won the National Magazine Award that year. He has lived in and reported from Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. He is now based in Washington DC.
Fallows grew up in the then-small town of Redlands, in Southern California. He studied American history and literature at Harvard, where he was editor of the student newspaper, and economics at Oxford, as a Rhodes scholar. During the Jimmy Carter administration he served for two years as the chief White House speechwriter.
https://twitter.com/JamesFallows
Conversation recorded on June 16, 2023.