The Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP) is pleased to announce that James and Deborah Fallows are joining the Center as Senior Fellows.
One of America’s leading reporters, James Fallows is currently a national correspondent for The Atlantic. Deborah is an author and linguist. They spent five years crisscrossing America in a small single-engine plane, visiting towns across the country and reporting on their civic and economic renewal for The Atlantic. Their book, Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America, builds on this experience, exploring the character and resilience of small towns and industries in the country’s heartland. It debuted on the New York Times best-seller list and is the subject of a forthcoming HBO documentary.
“We are honored to have both Jim and Deb Fallows join our group of Senior Fellows,” CCLP Director Geoffrey Cowan said. “Their new book is an inspiring view of what’s possible in America. Individually and as a team, they will enrich the life of the Center and our students.”
A renowned writer and journalist, James Fallows has authored twelve books. As a national correspondent for The Atlantic since the late 1970s, he has written widely about American politics, national security, technology, economic trends, and U.S. global relations with Asia, the Middle East, and other parts of the world. He has also worked as the editor of US News & World Report and as a program designer at Microsoft. He worked for two years as President Jimmy Carter’s chief White House speechwriter after receiving a graduate degree in Economics from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.
In 2003, James won the National Magazine Award for his story “Iraq: The Fifty-First State?”, the American Book Award for his book National Defense, and a New York Emmy for the documentary series Doing Business in China.
Deborah Fallows’s work has been featured in The Atlantic, National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, and The Washington Monthly, exploring topics including language, education, families and work, China, and travel. Deborah, who holds a PhD in theoretical linguistics from the University of Texas, is also the author of the highly acclaimed books Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language, based on the three years she spent living in China and studying Mandarin; and A Mother’s Work, which was an early look at the tensions between working professionally and raising children.
Previously, she worked as a senior research fellow at the Pew Research Center, reporting on internet use in the U.S. and China for the Pew Internet Project, and as director of data architecture for Oxygen Media. She was formerly the Assistant Dean and Assistant Director of Admissions at Georgetown University.