Jonathan D. Fitzgerald is the author of "How the News Feels: The Empathic Power of Literary Journalists." He also contributes to a weekly letter called In Progress.
Recently published
I had a blast at an esports tournament. No one is more surprised than me
Jonathan D. Fitzgerald grew up playing video games, but he worried about modern gaming culture’s reputation problem when it came to his son — until just recently. “Having spent over...
Zen and the art of midlife maintenance
Jonathan D. Fitzgerald is not having a midlife crisis. At least, that's what he thought — then he read MIT philosophy professor Kieran Setiya's book, "Midlife,” and started looking at...
Newport Folk Festival and the art of the good surprise
Each time I open a news app or website, some new turn of events awaits, writes Jonathan D. Fitzgerald. But for one weekend a year, Newport Folk Festival invites us...
No, Alexa, don’t curate my news for me
We live in the age of algorithmic everything, writes Jonathan D. Fitzgerald. But, of all the things we’ve allowed the algorithm to manage — movies, music, and shopping — news...
When we pay attention, empathy is everywhere
When Jonathan D. Fitzgerald set out to research and write about empathy, he started to see it everywhere. It led him to wonder, is empathy like a muscle you can...
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I made my smartphone dumb. I like it — and me — better this way
I realize now that I missed me -- the me that always lived inside my head, writes Jonathan D. Fitzgerald. For years, I was good company for myself until I...
The profundity of driving a stick shift
There’s a feeling — if you’ve ever driven stick, you know it — that the machine isn’t made for you; rather, you are made for the machine, writes Jonathan Fitzgerald....
College changed my life. I want the same for my students — with less debt
There is hardly a part of me today that wasn’t shaped in a significant way by the things I learned between the ages of 18 and 22, writes Jonathan Fitzgerald.
All Americans deserve paid parental leave
The right is criticizing Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg for taking leave to care for his two newborns. If nothing else, writes Jonathan Fitzgerald, it gives us the opportunity to discuss...
Stop Yelling At Alexa: In The Age Of #MeToo, Digital Assistants Deserve Our Respect
We perceive most of our digital assistants as female, writes Jonathan Fitzgerald. We ought to be more careful about how we treat them.