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The Onion buys Infowars from Alex Jones at bankruptcy auction

Vaseline November 14, 2024

Satirical news publication The Onion won Alex Jones’ bid for Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, to whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation for calling the massacre a hoax mentioned.

“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long waited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 Connecticut shooting, said Thursday in a statement from his lawyers.

The Onion has taken over the conspiracy theory platform’s website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive for an undisclosed retail price. The purchase gives a satirical outlet — which carries the banner of “America’s Finest News Source” on its masthead — control over a brand that has long spread misinformation and conspiracy.

Founded in the 1980s, The Onion has covered politics and pop culture for decades, often making Jones the target of mocking articles. Mass shootings in America, such as the Sandy Hook attack, are often followed by The Onion’s publication of slightly updated versions of one of its most well-known recurring satire pieces: “’No Way to Prevent This,’ Only Nation Says Where This Regular Happens.”

“No price would be too high for such an abundance of malleable possessions and minds,” The Onion said in a satirical post confirming the sale. “And yet, in a stroke of luck, a formidable interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already forgotten name) and forced him to sell it for a bargain price: less than a trillion dollars. .”

The Infowars website was offline Thursday morning. During his live broadcast, Jones was angry and defiant, promising to challenge the sale and auction process in court and saying he would use a new studio that had already been set up. He later announced that his show was being shut down, but he resumed a short time later in a new location and used a different social media account.

“The journey has only just begun. Thanks,” Jones said as he signed off.

The Onion, based in Chicago, consulted on the bids with some of the Sandy Hook families who sued Jones for defamation and emotional distress in lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas, attorneys for the families said.

“Our clients knew that real accountability meant the end of Infowars and the end of Jones’ ability to spread lies, pain and fear on a massive scale,” said Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the families.

Ben Collins, CEO of Onion’s parent company Global Tetrahedron, told The Associated Press in a video interview that it plans to relaunch the Infowars website in January with satire aimed at conspiracy theorists and right-wing personalities, as well as educational information about firearms . violence prevention from Everytown for Gun Safety. Collins joked that The Onion’s offer was $1 trillion, but would not reveal the actual amount.

“We thought it would be a really funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes we’ve ever told,” Collins said. “The (Sandy Hook) families decided that they would effectively join our bid, support our bid, in an effort to get us across the finish line. Because at the end of the day, either we or Alex Jones could continue this website unabated, basically with impunity, for what he has done to these families over the years, or we could create a stupid, stupid website, and we decided to do the latter.”

The publication bills itself as “the world’s leading news publication, providing critically acclaimed, universally respected coverage of important national, international and local news events” and claims to have 4.3 trillion daily readers. Recent headlines include: “Trump Boys Have a Slapping Fight Over Who Gets to Lead Foreign Policy Meetings,” “Oklahoma Law Requires Ten Commandments Displayed in Every Womb,” and “Man Forgets the Difference Between Meteoroid and meteorite struggles to describe what just killed him. Dog.”

The families of Sandy Hook sued Jones and his company for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting that killed 20 children and six teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to encourage more gun control .
Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones’ conspiracies and the threats of his followers.

Sealed bids for the private auction opened on Wednesday. Both supporters and opponents of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars.

Jones had told listeners that if his supporters won the bid, he could remain on the Infowars platforms. The trustee named First United American Companies, a company associated with one of Jones’ product sales sites, as a “backup offer” in case the purchase of The Onion fell through.

First United American Companies asked the Houston bankruptcy court in a filing Thursday to immediately hold a status conference on “the apparent flaws in the sale process, including changing procedures, lack of transparency and inaccurate disclosures to interested bidders,” saying: “the value of the assets is currently being destroyed.”

Originally published: November 14, 2024 at 10:03am PST