Books by Alex Jones

Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy (Institutions of American Democracy)

by Alex Jones

In Losing the News, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex S. Jones offers a probing look at the epochal changes sweeping the media, changes which are eroding the core news that has been the essential food supply of our democracy.
At a time of dazzling technological innovation, Jones says that what stands to be lost is the fact-based reporting that serves as a watchdog over government, holds the powerful accountable, and gives citizens what they need. In a tumultuous new media era, with cutthroat competition and panic over profits, the commitment of the traditional news media to serious news is fading. Indeed, as digital technology shatters the old economic model, the news media is making a painful passage that is taking a toll on journalistic values and standards. Journalistic objectivity and ethics are under assault, as is the bastion of the First Amendment. Jones characterizes himself not as a pessimist about news, but a realist. The breathtaking possibilities that the web offers are undeniable, but at what cost? Pundits and talk show hosts have persuaded Americans that the crisis in news is bias and partisanship. Not so, says Jones. The real crisis is the erosion of the iron core of news, something that hurts Republicans and Democrats alike.
Losing the News depicts an unsettling situation in which the American birthright of fact-based, reported news is in danger. But it is also a call to arms to fight to keep the core of news intact.

Praise for the hardcover:

"Thoughtful."
--New York Times Book Review

"An impassioned call to action to preserve the best of traditional newspaper journalism."
--The San Francisco Chronicle

"Must reading for all Americans who care about our country's present and future. Analysis, commentary, scholarship and excellent writing, with a strong, easy-to-follow narrative about why you should care, makes this a candidate for one of the best books of the year."
--Dan Rather

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors

by Mika Yoshitake, Gloria Sutton, Alex Jones, Melissa Chiu, Alexander Dumbadze, Miwako Tezuka

The first and only comprehensive volume exploring the artist's best-known and most spectacular series

Published with Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

This book presents world-renowned Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's most famous series, the Infinity Mirror Rooms, and charts its influence on the course of contemporary art for over 50 years.
Kusama's rooms are filled with multicolored lights that reflect endlessly. Ranging from peep-show-like chambers to multimedia installations, each of Kusama's kaleidoscopic environments offers the chance to step into an illusion of infinite space. This definitive publication traces these installations and reveals how, over the years, the works have come to symbolize different modalities, from Kusama's "self-obliteration" in the Vietnam War era to her more harmonious aspirations in the present. By examining her early unsettling installations alongside her more recent atmospheres, this publication historicizes her pioneering work amid today's renewed interest in experiential practices. Generously illustrated, this book invites readers to examine the series' impact over the course of the artist's career.
Yayoi Kusama (born 1929) has worked not only in sculpture and installation but also painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction and other arts. In her early career in Japan, she produced mostly works on paper. With her late-1950s move to New York City, she joined the ranks of the avant-garde, working in soft sculpture and influencing the likes of Warhol and Oldenburg. At this time, she was also involved with happenings and other performance-oriented works and began to deploy her signature dots. Her work fell into relative obscurity after her return to Japan in 1973, but a subsequent revival of interest in the 1980s elevated her work to the canonical status that it still enjoys today.