James Fallows (@jfallows.bsky.social) is a book and magazine writer whose work has won the National Magazine Award and American Book Award. The most recent of his 12 books is Our Towns, coauthored with his wife, Deborah Fallows, which was the basis of a 2021 HBO film. He now writes “Breaking the News” on Substack. He has lived in and reported for many years from Asia, was an early contributor to WIRED, and worked on a program-design team for Word at Microsoft. In his twenties he was chief White House speechwriter for President Carter.