

Photograph: Sergio Flores/Getty Photos
The thought for the Onion to purchase Infowars started, naturally sufficient, as a joke.
Final June, the satirical web site’s new CEO, Ben Collins, noticed {that a} federal chapter choose had ordered Alex Jones to liquidate his property at public sale to repay the hundreds of thousands he owes to Sandy Hook households he defamed. “That’d be one of many funniest jokes of all time if we pulled this off, if the Onion purchased Infowars,” Collins stated on Thursday afternoon. “Then I used to be like, ‘What if we truly did it?’”
He then known as the legal professionals representing the households that efficiently sued Jones for falsely claiming that the mass taking pictures that claimed the lives of their younger kids was a authorities hoax. “The households received fairly enthusiastic about it,” Collins stated. “It was an actual bid that might take it out of Alex’s arms.” Subsequent, he had to ensure it could truly be humorous. “We began asking round in our community of a whole bunch of comedy writers within the Onion Corridor of Fame, as we name it, what the brand new website would appear to be,” he stated. “And we simply received actually excited.”
A couple of months later, on Thursday morning, Collins tweeted that his viewers ought to “stand by for the funniest information you’ve ever heard in your life” earlier than asserting the acquisition.
“Please don’t count on us to make costlier jokes than this,” Collins stated.
The acquisition of Infowars, for an undisclosed quantity, is the most important push but within the Onion’s enlargement efforts because it was acquired by tech government Jeff Lawson in April. This summer season, the model additionally relaunched a newspaper from its headquarters in Chicago. However with Infowars, there is a chance to broaden its editorial focus into the bizarre on-line world of far-right conspiracism and snake-oil tablets — below the URL that helped launch this world into modern politics and media.
“We wish to rip out the underlying construction and simply be like, ‘Take a look at how they made you worry all the pieces and purchase your self into this type of factor,’” stated Collins, who was beforehand an NBC Information reporter protecting Jones and the world of disinformation. “A part of Alex’s factor is ‘Purchase extra ammo, get your self so afraid of all the pieces that you have to purchase this elixir and a gun.’ And we wish to expose that viewers to that in its most naked type.”
The acquisition contains the mental property of Infowars in addition to its bodily property, together with the studio and cameras Jones used for years to broadcast his present. They will even get Jones’s once-lucrative dietary-supplement and vitamin enterprise of Mind Power–branded tablets, although Collins stated he isn’t precisely certain what it would appear to be. “It’ll be one thing funnier than ‘Bone Power 9,000,’ nevertheless it’s alongside these strains,” he stated. When Infowars relaunches in January, it is going to be from the Onion’s headquarters in Chicago. Jones’s lease on his studio had simply two months remaining, in line with Collins.
The connection to Sandy Hook will stay on the core of the brand new Infowars. The Onion’s successful bid will go instantly into the pockets of the households defamed by Jones. And the location has partnered with Everytown for Gun Security for a multiyear advert marketing campaign when Infowars relaunches. (If it sounds unusual at first look, do not forget that the Onion’s most well-known headline is about mass shootings — “‘No Method to Stop This,’ Says Solely Nation The place This Usually Occurs.”)
“I’ve talked to a few relations,” stated Everytown for Gun Security president John Feinblatt. “There’s nothing we will do collectively that can convey again their loss, however what we will do is give them an oz of sense of restitution, an oz of sense of respect for them, and an oz of sense that we’re prepared to combat misinformation and expose the stuff that they received visited on them. And for that, I believe is the explanation why they needed this to occur.” Based on a assertion from the households’ lawyer issued on Thursday, they agreed to a smaller restoration from Jones to assist enable the deal to undergo. (A federal chapter choose might want the final phrase on the sale. Jones’s attorneys claimed that the trustee overseeing the public sale modified the principles on the final minute in order that solely sealed bids can be thought of. The AP reviews that an organization affiliated with Infowars submitted a $3.5 million provide and that there can be a listening to subsequent week.)
Jones, in the meantime, appeared as stunned as everybody else by the enterprise information that felt like an Onion headline. He appeared flustered as he knowledgeable his viewers of the sale. “I don’t know what’s going to occur,” he stated in a video posted to X. He then went dwell on his present to name Steve Bannon, the previous Trump adviser who simply received out of jail. “Dude, what the fuck is that this story?” Bannon requested him over the cellphone, flustering Jones even additional. He went to a break — one among his final on the community he constructed up from the bottom. Infowars readers who attempt to go to the web site discovered a message studying “website unavailable until additional discover.”
This story has been up to date to replicate new reporting on the bidding course of for Infowars.