As juries award huge damages for Jones’ claims about the Sandy Hook shooting, media outlets should look at how they helped him build his brand.
On Wednesday, a jury in Connecticut awarded the families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims $965 million in their lawsuit against right-wing conspiracy theorist and media personality Alex Jones. The ruling follows nearly $50 million in damages awarded by a Texas jury, after years of Jones spreading lies about the shooting and the victims’ families on his network, Infowars.
The families’ quest for justice is just the latest in a long line of stories from this age of modern misinformation. Jones is one of the most prolific spreaders of misinformation and conspiracy theories in modern media history. Many readers already know Jones’ story, and the way he rants and raves on camera day after day while hawking supplements and survival gear. Though Wednesday’s judgment will likely put a significant dent in Jones’ finances, Infowars still garners hundreds of thousands of views every day. He’s the quintessential example of a guy who people hear is “controversial,” and that controversy drives interest in his content.
But his story is also one of media failure.
Jones first rose to notoriety in the early 2000s as this “crazy” guy who entertains by saying whatever comes to his mind on his radio show. That initial attention bought him appearances on mainstream television. According to media critic Parker Molloy, who writes The Present Age newsletter, Jones was invited on to ABC’s The View in 2011 to talk about Charlie Sheen getting fired from his show, “Two and a Half Men” on CBS.
