Alexander has covered U.S. culture, politics, and civic life. He is recipient of University of Denver’s Anvil of Freedom Award, Franklin Pierce University’s Fitzwater Medallion for Leadership in Public Communication, and Yale University’s Poynter Fellowship in Journalism. He is coauthor of best-selling A Documentary History of the United States (Penguin, 2022) whose newest edition chronicles the pandemic and January 6th insurrection. He was a special correspondent for PBS’s Need to Know chronicling the youth vote, founded and edited SCOOP08 and SCOOP44, the first-ever national student newspapers covering the 2008 campaign and the Obama administration, and taught a civic education seminar in New York City public school classrooms.