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James Fallows

James Fallows - James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May.
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James Fallows is based in Washington as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine for nearly 30 years and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of US News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the chair in U.S. media at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.

Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. His two most recent books, Blind Into Baghdad (2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (2009), are based on his writings for The Atlantic. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May. He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the recent book Dreaming in Chinese. They have two married sons.

Fallows welcomes and frequently quotes from reader mail sent via the "Email" button below. Unless you specify otherwise, we consider any incoming mail available for possible quotation -- but not with the sender's real name unless you explicitly state that it may be used. If you are wondering why Fallows does not use a "Comments" field below his posts, please see previous explanations here and here.

It's Almost Like Being Back in Guomao (updated)

By James Fallows
Nov 29 2010, 11:24 PM ET

[See UPDATE below] As I can't say often enough, my favorite paper in the whole world is China Daily. It's the state-controlled, English-language, unfailingly earnest and on-message official voice of China to the outside world. Even China Daily's editors can't come up, every single day, with headlines like their masterpieces: "Happiness Abounds as Country Cheers" or "Woman Who Urinated Often Told To Drink Less Water." But most days they come close; their batting average is amazingly high.

 And now, after months of missing the satisfaction of seeing China Daily in morning (yes, it's online, but that's not quite the same), I discover to my delight that it is coming periodically as a special section of the Washington Post, with the name "China Watch"! The newspaper lineup this morning, with trademark photo of happily waving youths:

ChinaDailyinDC.png

In this development (which has gone on for a while) some might see fodder for discussion of the Post's situation, or China's soft power, or national rise and decline, or blah blah blah. To me it's one more reason for hope as I go out for the papers each day.

UPDATE: I feel so out of it! I hadn't realized that there is a homage site to my favorite paper, obviously put together by people who share my regard for it, called ChinaDailyShow. One of the current headlines below. And while this item might seem intended to "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people," the site as a whole clearly isn't.
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For instance, also from today's front page:
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