Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy

The news we need

Alex Jones is the best of guides to the current multiple crises of the news business. At the center of his concern is the essential news, the information and the search for truth that are crucial to the functioning of robust democratic institutions.

Jones makes sense of a wide range of complicated issues: the relation of the media to democracy; the fragility of the First Amendment and of its protections for the citizens' right to know about the decisions that affect their lives; the difficulties and the uses of objectivity; and the multiple dimensions of media ethics. He does so partly by telling stories - history that reaches back for over two centuries, stories of the small town paper in Tennessee owned by his remarkable family, and essential chapters of the media history of the past four decades.

The challenge of the electronic media to the newspaper business may ultimately drastically reduce the role of newspapers in American life. But Jones points out that many newspapers have already severely reduced their commitment to generating the "accountability news," the reports we need about government and power at all levels.

This is an engaging book, and a profoundly fair one. We are in his debt.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Very interesting book

Great insight into the history of the news and how it has changed over time. Alex Jones is a great writer and clearly explains his analysis of why news must change.

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