In-House News: A Sad But Proud Farewell to Joshua Green

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Today, in what is unfortunately his last entry on the Atlantic's web site, Joshua Green says goodbye to his professional home of the past eight years, as he moves to Bloomberg Businessweek. That's his website mini-picture at right.

It's pro forma to note in such cases what a sad loss it is when a colleague leaves, etc. But there's nothing pro forma in my saying how much his Atlantic family admires Josh and will miss him as a colleague. In his past few years as a blogger and artist of drolleries-in-miniature via Twitter, he's reminded everyone of why he once worked at The Onion. Given Twitter's memory-hole feature, I can't dig up many of them, but for instance here's his proposal for Ron Paul's campaign bus: " 'The Austrian Express': painted gold, natch, it runs not on gasoline but by burning fiat money."

In the magazine, he's produced an outsized proportion of our political coverage, analysis, and scoops. In the past presidential-campaign cycle, that included very influential stories about what happened (wrong) in the Hillary Clinton campaign and how she had set herself up for that run, what happened (right) with the Obama money-raising strategy, what happened (in every which way) to Sarah Palin in Alaska, and why Timothy Geithner, greatly beleaguered at the time of Josh's writing, was likely to emerge as the Administration's central economic figure -- as he has. Plus, Karl Rove in his early days. Each of these stories offered an outlook that was unconventional when it appeared, and each played a big part in shifting public discussion and understanding in the direction Josh had figured out. And I'll just mention names like Rich Iott, Eric Massa, Judge Roy Moore, and "Inbred Jed the Zombie." Josh's reporting and writing played a role in their lives too. You can look it up.

But you know all that by reading. What you might not know is what a wonderful and generous colleague, friend, and person Joshua Green is -- plus husband and father. Everyone will still get to read his work, though unfortunately not here; and he will remain a friend. But his colleagues at the Atlantic are proud that he's been one of us and sorry he's not any more. The tribe of Washington Monthly alums are proud that Josh is from that heritage too. Congratulations to a colleague who we all appreciate and like.

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. More

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.
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