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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, will be published in 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; he is at work on another book about China. 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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I am shocked to see a factual error in today's Washington Post!

By James Fallows

Dec 18 2008, 10:55 AM ET

Though to be fair, it is an error that probably only one person in the entire world is likely to have noticed. (Rather, that person's wife, from the computer in the other room just now.)* It comes in this story about Obama's chief speechwriter Jon Favreau, and it is hidden somewhere in this paragraph:
During the campaign, the buzz-cut 27-year-old at the corner table helped write and edit some of the most memorable speeches of any recent presidential candidate. When Obama moves to the White House next month, Favreau will join his staff as the youngest person ever to be selected as chief speechwriter. He helps shape almost every word Obama says, yet the two men have formed a concert so harmonized that Favreau's own voice disappears.
Easily fixed! If the story were merely tweaked to say "the youngest person ever to be selected as a chief speechwriter for someone renowned for giving great speeches," fact-checkers would be content. Not that I'm counting, but Favreau is roughly two months more grizzled than the person who did that job under Jimmy Carter was at the time. Personally, I think the extra maturity will be a plus.
_____
* I was emboldened to post this by an email from someone else who noticed. The message's subject line was, "Have you given up the mantle?" No indeed! Until some 26-year old shows up, or someone younger than my 27-years-and-4+-months at the start of the Jimmy Carter era, I'm clinging to the title!



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