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…If the press makes politics just another form of entertainment, it’s going to lose, because entertainment is always more entertaining. And it’s going to make people feel that everything is rigged, everything is a game, there’s no point in being involved.
—James Fallows, author of the Breaking the News newsletter and contributing writer to The Atlantic
On October 10th —25 days ahead of the 2024 presidential election—Ten Across founder Duke Reiter and veteran political correspondent James Fallows sat down to discuss journalism’s role in American democracy today. Fallows has been a notable observer of this dynamic since at least 1996, when he published Breaking the News, a book which described the origins of the public’s mistrust of the news media.
Fallows believed as much then as now that most political journalism is a source of entertainment focused on the gamesmanship of policymaking, rather than practical information for civically engaged citizens. This disconnect has only grown as many local news publications have proven unable to adapt to the digital age, leaving many communities to become ‘news deserts.’
Together with his wife Deborah, the Fallows have sought to alleviate distrust of the media and the related knowledge gaps by reporting from small towns in their book and HBO documentary Our Towns. Their work has led them to conclude that the national media lacks sufficient capacity or interest to provide a platform for all the complexity and ideological nuance found among the voting populace. They now operate the Our Towns Civic Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to uncovering stories of civic renewal and local success.
In this live conversation recorded at the Arizona State University campus in Tempe, Duke Reiter and James Fallows discuss how the imperfect barometer of national-scale journalism can shape citizen behaviors and tensions between the major parties, especially in an election year.
Fact check of today’s episode:
The Barry Goldwater Range Complex located in Arizona’s Gila Bend is incorrectly referred to as the John McCain Bombing Range in this discussion.
Relevant links and resources:
James Fallows | Substack: Breaking the News
Breaking the News (Fallows, 1996)
Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America (Fallows, James and Deborah Fallows, 2018)
“A Kansas town offers transportation for voters but many are unaware” (NBC News, 2018)
“Why Phoenix is the ‘Most American City’ with George Packer” (Ten Across Conversations, 2024)
Guest Speaker
James Fallows writes the Breaking the News newsletter and is a contributor to The Atlantic. He is the author of 11 non-fiction books, including National Defense, which won a 1983 National Book Award. James and his wife Deborah Fallows co-wrote the book Our Towns, which was made into a 2021 HBO documentary of the same name. The two later co-founded the Our Town Civic Foundation to support this work. Along with being a former editor of U.S. News and World Report and award-winning national correspondent for The Atlantic, James was also President Jimmy Carter’s chief speechwriter for two years.
