The Curious Engineer

All blogs / Society / politics / economy

Breaking the News

fallows.substack.com

Dispatches from a veteran reporter. Click to read Breaking the News, by James Fallows, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

Society / politics / economyEssays / personal

’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
343 from 2 Sep 2021 to 18 Oct 2026
Posting
weekly (39 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://fallows.substack.com/feed

2026 33

  1. Midterm Countdown: 16 Days to Go.
  2. Barbarians Sack the Capital.
  3. Midterm Countdown, 33 Days to Go: Language from Our Leader.
  4. Midterm Time Capsule, 35 Days to Go.
  5. Running as a Democrat, in a Trump +30 State.
  6. Twenty-five Years After 9/11: What Have We Learned, and Forgotten?
  7. ‘Breaking the News’ is Back.
  8. Summertime News.
  9. Music of Place: Remembering the Genius of Phil Aaberg.
  10. The Post-Trump Era Is Beginning.
  11. Trump Lands in Beijing: What I'm Watching For.
  12. What We Don't Know, Can Kill Us: Part 3.
  13. ‘Be Not Simply Good. Be Good for Something.’
  14. What We Don't Know, Can Kill Us: Part 2.
  15. What We Don’t Know, Can Kill Us.
  16. ‘I Fly With the Eagles.’
  17. Your Scorecard for US Military Aircraft Over Iran.
  18. What Happened Last Night at LaGuardia.
  19. One Man a Hero. One Man a Monster.
  20. The Folly of War Grows Worse.
  21. The Arrogance of Ignorance.
  22. Nasty, Brutish, and Long.
  23. It's SOTU Time!
  24. What Should the Dems Do to Win—And Then to Govern?
  25. What Happened in El Paso?
  26. Management Under a Mad King: The Courtiers Who Try to Clean Up.
  27. What We've Learned About the Deadly Crash Over the Potomac.
  28. “We’re No Longer Having a Political Debate. We’re Having a Moral Debate.”
  29. A Speech for the History Books.
  30. Your Primer on Greenland.
  31. The Rhetoric of Leaders: Meeting the Moment.
  32. In the Time of the Mad King.
  33. ‘Blind Into Caracas.’

2025 54

  1. A Positive Sign for Flying in the Future...
  2. ‘This Is the Proverbial Rainy Day.’
  3. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow.
  4. Thankful for One Another.
  5. Why I Changed My Mind About the Shutdown ‘Surrender.’
  6. Air Travel at the Breaking Point.
  7. An Autumn Afternoon in Washington D.C.
  8. Putting the ‘Public’ Back in Public Editor.
  9. Stand Up, Stand Together.
  10. Air Travel During the Shutdown. Do I Need to Worry?
  11. Preserving Our Sanity, During Insane Times.
  12. Making College Rankings Great Again.
  13. Harvard vs Trump vs the Media: An Update.
  14. ‘Fight Them Every Inch of the Way.’
  15. A Summer Afternoon in Washington D.C.
  16. Which Side Are We On?
  17. Trump in Anchorage: A Humiliation. Trump in DC: A Phony Spectacle.
  18. What It Actually ‘Feels Like’ in DC.
  19. On Showing Up, and Meeting the Moment
  20. The Powers That Were
  21. What We Know, and Don't, About the Air India Crash.
  22. The Central Valley’s ‘Wonderful Schools’: An Our Towns Report.
  23. A Reading List for America's Birthday.
  24. Speechwriting, Then and Now.
  25. Aviation Report: An Example of Honesty, and One of Deceit.
  26. Gavin Newsom as the Adult in the Room.
  27. Finding Lost Hills: An ‘Our Towns’ Report.
  28. What to Learn From China.
  29. Kristi Noem vs. Harvard: What Their Language Reveals.
  30. What to Read Before Your Next Flight.
  31. Pay Attention to What Happened in Newark.
  32. One Hundred Days In: The People Who Have Put These Days to Good Use
  33. From Academia, a ‘Primal Scream.’
  34. Dominoes Are Falling.
  35. Standing Up: You Can Do it Even When You're 389 Years Old.
  36. Perils in the Skies.
  37. Standing Up: It Looks Like This.
  38. Launching the Economic Version of the Iraq War.
  39. Simple Q-and-A About the Signal Leak.
  40. Where Do We Stand: A ‘Correlation of Forces’ Assessment.
  41. ‘The Only Practical Check That’s Left Is the Power of the Purse.’
  42. Three Alarming ‘Tells’ from Trump's Latest Speech.
  43. Killing People Through Corruption: More Examples from Aviation.
  44. ‘They Were Careless People’: Taking Moments to Tear Down What Has Taken Lifetimes to Create.
  45. From ‘Defund the Police’ to ‘Defund Air Traffic Control.’
  46. ‘This is Serious Business. You Better Start Paying Attention.’
  47. What the Right Kind of Nationalism Sounds Like.
  48. Another Bad Day for Aviation.
  49. What Do We Know Now, About the Airline Crash in DC?
  50. It Had Been 16 Years Since a Fatal US Airlines Crash.
  51. The Worst Part of a Terrible Speech.
  52. The Speech Joe Biden Is Likely to be Remembered For.
  53. Does Politics Turn on a Message? Or a Messenger?
  54. ‘The Bond of our Common Humanity...’

2024 76

  1. Jimmy Carter, President and Citizen.
  2. Panama Is Back in the News. That Can Be a Good Thing.
  3. ‘Looking Forward’: A Brief Film for Our Times.
  4. Obeying in Advance: The Christopher Wray Story.
  5. What Is To Be Done? Investing Where It Matters.
  6. The Night Watch.
  7. What Is To Be Done? Chronicling Our Future, as It Is Being Built.
  8. After the Election: Swimming in the Sea of Disinformation.
  9. Election Countdown: The Day After.
  10. Election Countdown, One More Day and a Wake-Up: Now It's Up to Us.
  11. Election Countdown, Six Days to Go: Simple Questions About What’s Ahead.
  12. Election Countdown, 11 Days to Go: Reasons to be Brave.
  13. Election Countdown, 17 Days to Go: Ground Truths That Matter.
  14. Election Countdown, 20 Days to Go: Eyes Wide Open as We Near the End.
  15. Election Countdown, 25 Days to Go: Delivering the Message, Despite the Media.
  16. Election Countdown, 32 Days to Go: Two Contrasting Front Pages.
  17. Election Countdown, 33 Days to Go: Did We Learn Anything from the VP Debate?
  18. Jimmy Carter's First Century.
  19. Election Countdown, 38 Days to Go: What Is Wrong With Our Leading Paper?
  20. Election Countdown, 43 Days to Go: ‘Are You Better Off?’
  21. Election Countdown, 55 Days to Go: The Debate.
  22. The Trump-Vance Plane Goes Into Prohibited Airspace.
  23. Election Countdown, 59 Days to Go: Nippon Steel vs. the Electoral College.
  24. Election Countdown, 65 Days to Go: The New ‘Accountability’ Problem.
  25. Now for Something Different: Promising Developments from Across the Country.
  26. Election Countdown, 74 Days to Go: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Convention.
  27. Election Countdown, 80 Days to Go: Media Failure Reaches a Turning Point.
  28. The Tragic Crash in Brazil: Why Would an Airplane Fall From the Sky?
  29. Election Countdown, 90 Days to Go: Three Lessons in Speech-Making.
  30. Election Countdown, 99 Days to Go: Who Is Tim Walz?
  31. The Man Who Loved Politics: Mr. Walter Shapiro, 1947-2024.
  32. Election Countdown, 103 Days to Go: Biden and Harris Each Set a Tone for Looking Ahead.
  33. Election Countdown, 107 Days to Go: Joe Biden Passes the Torch
  34. Election Countdown, 108 Days to Go: Trump’s Disastrous Speech Follows Biden’s Disastrous Debate.
  35. Election Countdown, 110 Days to Go: History Happening All at Once.
  36. A Presidential Address for This Moment
  37. Election Countdown, 130 Days to Go: A Bad Night for America.
  38. The Classroom of the Skies
  39. A Note to Readers, in Gratitude.
  40. Election Countdown, 157 Days to Go: Why Juries Matter
  41. The Singapore Airlines Emergency: What Happened, and What Can We Learn?
  42. Election Countdown, 169 Days to Go: ‘Old Ghosts in New Garments.’
  43. Election Countdown, 176 Days to Go: ‘Hot dogs. Let's talk about hot dogs.’
  44. Election Countdown, 182 Days to Go: One Publication Shows the Way....
  45. More Airport Close Calls: This Is Getting Serious
  46. Election Countdown, 198 Days to Go: A Civic Example to Follow.
  47. Election Countdown, 205 Days to Go: Reality Closes In.
  48. Election Countdown, 217 Days to Go: As ‘Faith’ Curdles Into Cult.
  49. Angela Voller Zerad, 1921-2024.
  50. Election Countdown, 225 Days to Go: NBC News and the McDaniel Mistake.
  51. Election Countdown, 228 Days to Go: Today's Characters Make Their Mark on History.
  52. It's Raining Airplanes. Three Saves in Two Weeks.
  53. ‘America is Very Purple’: Personality and Place Across the American Landscape.
  54. Election Countdown, 240 Days to Go: The General Election Campaign Has Begun.
  55. Election Countdown, 243 Days to Go: Four Mysteries After ‘Super Tuesday.’
  56. Ralph Nader Looks Ahead, at Age 90. What He Sees Is Not What You'd Expect.
  57. The Culture of Aviation Safety
  58. Election Countdown, 254 Days to Go: A Step Away from the ‘No Labels’ Brink.
  59. Election Countdown, 258 Days to Go: The New Politics of Place.
  60. Election Countdown, 262 Days to Go: Do ‘Turning Points’ Exist Any More?
  61. Election Countdown, 264 Days to Go: Fuzzy Talk About ‘Fuzzy Memory’
  62. Election Countdown, 270 Days to Go: The Elderly Man in the White House.
  63. Election Countdown, 271 Days to Go: ‘Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?’
  64. Election Countdown, 276 Days to Go: An ‘Up’ for Team Biden, with the Unknowable Ahead.
  65. Election Countdown, 282 Days to Go: The “States’ Rights” Era Returns.
  66. ‘You Know Nothing of My Work…’
  67. Election Countdown, 288 Days to Go: ‘Kissing the Ring’
  68. Election Countdown, 291 Days to Go: Our Country's Story, Told in Headlines
  69. Election Countdown, 295 Days to Go: Fortune-Telling vs Reporting.
  70. Podcast: How You Change, When You Learn Something New.
  71. Election Countdown: 300 Days to Go.
  72. The ‘Cultural’ Questions that Follow the Alaska Airlines Blowout.
  73. Election Countdown: 305 Days to Go.
  74. Updates on the Haneda Airport Collision (info for email readers).
  75. Today's Runway Collision in Japan (UPDATED)
  76. For the New Year: Election-Day Countdown.

2023 60

  1. Are Autopilots Dangerous?
  2. ‘The Kids Are All Right...’
  3. Pushing Tin
  4. Milestones: Angela Zerad Begins Her 103rd Year
  5. Thankful for Charlie Peters
  6. Rosalynn Carter Made a Difference
  7. What’s the Hope for the World? ‘The Aging Out of the Boomer Generation.’
  8. Chinese Airplanes in American Skies, German Words in American English, and Other Links of the Day.
  9. Covering the Election: the One-Year Countdown Begins.
  10. These Latest Air Travel Scares: What Do They Add Up To?
  11. Listening to Joe Biden
  12. Grace Under Pressure: Another Example from the Skies.
  13. Marty Baron's Time at the Washington Post
  14. ‘Fate is the Hunter’: Respect to Richard McSpadden and Russ Francis.
  15. Judge Tabit, Senator Feinstein: We Have Lost Two Remarkable Women in Public Life.
  16. Return to Media World: More on Making the Sausage.
  17. Is Joe Biden ‘Too Old?’
  18. September Song: The 50 Autumns of the Leaf Blower
  19. DefCon Cyber: A ‘War’ that's Underway Online.
  20. What's Right with College Rankings, What's Wrong with College Politics
  21. Forgotten Americans (of a different type)
  22. In the Air, on Thin Ice?
  23. Media World, Part 1: Let Us See How the Sausage is Made.
  24. What We Learned from the Wind.
  25. ‘I Would Prefer Not To’...
  26. ProPublica Takes Another Look at Wuhan
  27. Supremely Calm, Supremely Confident.
  28. In Which We Buy a Car from Elon Musk
  29. The Court Can't Heal Itself, Part 2.
  30. ‘On the Media’, Behind the Scenes
  31. Fox News Worth Watching: An Hour with Hannity and Newsom.
  32. About That Sonic Boom Over Washington
  33. An Early Casualty in the AI Wars
  34. What We Learned from the CNN-Trump Debacle
  35. Guest Post: ‘My Covid Brain’
  36. On Knowing When to Go.
  37. ‘It's just business.’ People Who Sow Hate for Profit.
  38. The Court Can't Heal Itself.
  39. Media Lessons from a Tumultuous Week
  40. ‘Death of the Great Man’: a Conversation with Peter Kramer.
  41. The AR-15 is a Weapon of War.
  42. How to Read an NTSB Report.
  43. The Iraq War and Modern Memory
  44. ‘A Nearly Infinite Pool of Ignorance’
  45. Bad Breaks? Or a System That's Breaking?
  46. When the Golden Record Went to Space
  47. Jimmy Carter: Unlucky President, Lucky Man
  48. What the Hell is Happening in the Sky?
  49. Why Biden’s SOTU Worked.
  50. ‘As bad as it gets without body bags.’
  51. Troubles in the Skies: Chinese Spy Balloon, Another Runway Close Call.
  52. Simple Things I Learned About China
  53. The Cirrus Has Landed
  54. From the Mailbag: Journalistic Hubris, Aviation Close Calls, High-Tech Responsibility
  55. Learning from Disasters: Political Media Edition
  56. Update: The Passengers at JFK Last Week Were Very Lucky
  57. That Runway Incursion at JFK: What Went Wrong and Right
  58. Wins, Bravery, and a Loss
  59. OK, There Was Something Positive in the Speaker-Vote Debacle
  60. ‘Everyone Is Here’: Prose Poetry

2022 82

  1. A Few Questions (and Some Answers) About the Latest Airline Meltdown
  2. The Thinking Behind the Remarkable Zelensky Speeches
  3. The Skill Involved in Zelensky's Congressional Address
  4. Turning North America Back into 'Beaverland'
  5. Some Good News From the Tech World
  6. More Questions for ProPublica
  7. On That ProPublica ‘Chinese Lab Leak’ Story.
  8. December Update
  9. Learning from Disasters
  10. Tips for Turkey Week
  11. Michael Pertschuk, Michael Gerson: May Their Memories Be Blessings
  12. The Political Press Needs a Time Out
  13. Twitter Is Our Future
  14. ‘There Are Only Five Media Stories’
  15. Don't Get Covid.
  16. Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers Are Going Away. Really.
  17. Another Look Into the ‘Heart’ of America
  18. Making Up Our History, As We Go.
  19. Guest Post: The Part of the Espionage Act That Matters
  20. Two New Maps to Notice
  21. The Point of Being Blunt
  22. Back to School
  23. ‘To Arrive Where We Started and Know the Place for the First Time’
  24. The View from Inside the Sky
  25. ‘No Man But a Blockhead,’ One Year In
  26. August Recommendations: A Few More
  27. Framing the News: An Example
  28. The Other Victims of the Rushdie Attack
  29. August Recommendations
  30. The Cycles of Dick Cheney's Life
  31. Welcome Tiger James Fallows
  32. Mapping the Future: HEAT.gov
  33. ‘This is who you are’
  34. Transcript: Podcast with Raquel Coronell Uribe, of the Harvard Crimson
  35. China Airborne, Again
  36. Biden Has Covid: What That Means
  37. Weekend Reading: Some Good Books
  38. How to Rein in an Out-of-Control Judiciary
  39. A Lucky Country, on Thin Ice
  40. A Branch of Government Self-Destructs
  41. 'Interesting Software' Update
  42. ‘There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone...’
  43. Politics as Pro Wrestling: 2022 Edition
  44. ‘Show Us the Carnage’
  45. ‘The Empty Rituals of a Gun Massacre’
  46. ‘Going Away’: A Guest Post
  47. A Modern ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’
  48. About That Passenger Who Landed a Plane
  49. What People Might Remember from Nerd Prom 2022
  50. Nietzsche Goes to the Nerd Prom
  51. Two New Possibilities for the ‘Times’
  52. Two April Appreciations: Beach, Schell
  53. ‘It’s About Your Leaf Blower’
  54. Escaping from ‘Flatland’
  55. Podcast with Isaac Stone Fish: ‘America Second’
  56. Isaac Stone Fish, on ‘America Second’
  57. Framing: In Honor of Eric Boehlert.
  58. Guest Post: Another Katyn Massacre, Another Srebrenica
  59. The Month’s Speeches, Part 2: @ZelenskyyUA
  60. This Month's Speeches, Part 1: @Schwarzenegger
  61. Shanghai Quarantine Diary, Part 4
  62. Shanghai Quarantine Diary, Part 3
  63. Shanghai Quarantine Diary, Part 2
  64. Guest Post: Shanghai Quarantine Diary, Part 1
  65. ‘The Street Sense to Recognize a Gangster’
  66. Guest Post: Kiev in the 1970s, and Kyiv Now
  67. State of the Union Part 2: How Biden's Speech Worked
  68. State of the Union Part 1: How These Speeches Work
  69. Calm Under Extreme Pressure: Here's Another Example
  70. Another Way to Help Ukrainians: Let Them In
  71. Journalism Needs to Engage With Its Critics
  72. ‘Framing the News’: An Update
  73. A Word the Press Should Remember
  74. ‘Say Souls On Board’: How Professionals Sound Under Pressure
  75. On life tenure, and its drawbacks
  76. The 5G Airline Controversy: What Is It About?
  77. A Dance of Legislation
  78. Four Facts About the Filibuster
  79. ‘I'm Tired of Being Quiet’: Biden in Georgia
  80. On the Road with Rabelais: Remembering the Great Frankie Jose
  81. ‘Here is the God’s Truth’
  82. A New-Year Note of Thanks

2021 38

  1. From the Archives: ‘How the World Works’
  2. ‘How the World Works’ article, from 1993.
  3. Two Economic Problems. One of Them Matters More.
  4. We’re Stuck With The Senate. What Then?
  5. ‘Fools, drunks, and the United States of America’
  6. Angela Zerad begins her 101st year
  7. A Civic Thanksgiving
  8. Rev. Freddie Tellis, 'Today'
  9. The Questions I Ask About China
  10. 'Fate is the Hunter'
  11. Open Thread, November 12
  12. They Promised Us Flying Cars...
  13. ‘Politics-as-Sports’: Why It Matters
  14. Weekend Reading: November 5 Edition
  15. A New Search Engine Worth Trying: Neeva
  16. Four Books to Notice
  17. What We Learned, at the Town Hall
  18. The Rankings Racket Goes to Kindergarten
  19. American Soft-Skills Infrastructure, as Seen From Above
  20. The Debt Limit Chronicles, Oct. 7
  21. The Debt Limit Chronicles, Oct. 5
  22. Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers: the End is Nigh
  23. The Debt Limit Chronicles, Sept. 30
  24. The Debt Limit Chronicles, Sept. 28
  25. The Debt Limit Chronicles, Sept. 26
  26. The Next Real-Time Test for the Press
  27. Telling the American Story: a Webinar
  28. In Honor of Charly Jupiter Hamilton
  29. How an Aviation Emergency Sounds in Real Time
  30. At Last: Transcription Software That Works
  31. The Importance of the Milley Call
  32. Why California's Vote Matters
  33. 'The Nation I Know,' by George W. Bush
  34. 2 programs, 1 speech, 1 question
  35. Bring in the Refugees
  36. The College Rankings Racket
  37. Eloquence is Overrated
  38. This is 'Breaking the News'