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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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Mischke CD, video news

By James Fallows

Dec 16 2008, 6:25 PM ET

Last week, this report on the unceremonious canning of my bar-none favorite radio humorist, T.D. "Tommy" Mischke of St. Paul.

Three cheerier or at least schadenfreude-ish updates now:

1) Dave Brauer, of MinnPost.com, has this testimonial from Mark Moeller, of the local retailer R.F.Moeller Jewelers, that has had Mischke do personalized ads for them over the last 15 years, about his pulling his ads in protest.
Mischke "made a profound difference in my business. Not a day goes by -- not a day -- where someone doesn't walk into a store and say 'Mischke sent me.'" I pressed Moeller to tell me how much of a hit KSTP was taking for this. "It was well into seven figures" he says of his ad buys over 15 years.
2) A YouTube video that Moeller and Mischke produced, called "Don't Jump, Tommy," whose purpose Mischke explained this way in a note to me:
So, here's what I ended up doing over the weekend. I had a lot of listeners writing me, concerned that, because of my occasional bouts of depression, this firing business could be sending me right over the edge. I wanted to address that and, at the same time, help out Mark Moeller who has stood by me through all this despite being telephoned daily by KSTP management in an effort to lure him back on the air.
Mischke is more derelict-looking in this video than in real life.



3) Mischke's latest music CD (not radio-humor CD) is available here. I haven't heard him sing other than in comedy bits on the program, but i will order this on faith. His humor CDs, which I have heard, will soon be available; stay tuned for details.



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