Alex S. Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and academic who specializes in covering the media, was named director of the Shorenstein Center yesterday, Kennedy School of Government officials announced.

Jones said last night that he wants to make the center a "quick response" hub for breaking news, such as the Elian Gonzalez custody battle. But he said he wants to combine that approach with deeper academic study.

"My vision of the Shorenstein Center is where [media studies are] done on a lot of different levels," he said. "Very quickly in Internet and case studies, more thoughtful in longer research, and done at its most profound...when the discipline of academic research is merged with the curiosity of investigative reporting."

For example, Jones said, he wants the center to take on major ongoing issues like global warming, trigger locks on handguns and aid to Africa.

The center should find "the money to do the kind of research to take that issue apart to understand how the media behaved, what happened, what didn't happen," he said. "To find out why it happened, what are the interest groups involved, why did they make the decisions they did?"

With Jones' appointment, the Shorenstein Center becomes the first of the three major journalism institutes which have been seeking new directors this year to fill their top spot.

The directors of the Nieman Foundation and the John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford University also both resigned during last 18 months.

Jones will officially become the center's second director in July, but said he will not be on campus full time until September.