Not Funny: The Onion Buys Infowars In Bankruptcy Auction
The leftist-satirical rag The Onion announced on Thursday that it had won a bankruptcy auction to acquire Infowars - the website founded and operated by Alex Jones since 1999.
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On Wednesday, Jones said that the auction's trustee could choose any bidder it wanted - not necessarily the high bidder. Jones announced the sale on X Thursday morning.
"I just got word 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and folks met with the U.S. trustee over our bankruptcy this morning and they said they are shutting us down even without a court order this morning," he said. "The Connecticut democrats with The Onion newspaper bought us."
The Onion told the NY Times that the bid was sanctioned by the families of the victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, who won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones.
The Onion did not disclose the price it paid for Infowars and its assets, including Jones' production studio and supplement business.
Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion parent company, Global Tetrahedron, says he plans to relaunch Infowars in January as a parody of itself, mocking "weird internet personalities."
In a not-funny post, The Onion wrote:
After Infowars is raped and rebooted, the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety says it plans to advertise on it. Collins declined to disclose the value of said advertising deal, but that it was a multiyear agreement that would include banner ads and sponsored articles on the site.
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown, told the NY Times, "This was an opportunity for us to give The Onion the facts, the storytelling, the data and the research that’s at our fingertips," adding "And for them to give us the creativity of how to turn all of that information into new messaging to a new audience."
Collins said that the relaunched Infowars might publish its own satirical stories focusing on gun violence.
Chris Mattei, a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families, said in a statement that taking possession of Infowars amounted to accountability for "Alex Jones and his corrupt business."
"By divesting Jones of Infowars’ assets, the families and the team at The Onion have done a public service and will meaningfully hinder Jones’s ability to do more harm," said Mattei.
According to the NYT, "The plan is to relaunch it next year with an approach reminiscent of Clickhole, The Onion’s sister site that poked fun at “listicles” from BuzzFeed and other purveyors of viral content."
Article
The Onion buys InfoWars in Alex Jones bankruptcy sale
The Onion, a satirical news outlet, plans to use the InfoWars website and brand to present offerings from humor writers and content creators.
Jones shared news of the sale on X on Thursday morning, saying, “I just got word 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and folks met with the U.S. trustee over our bankruptcy this morning and they said they are shutting us down even without a court order this morning.”
“The Connecticut Democrats with The Onion newspaper bought us,” he added.
The Onion plans to use the InfoWars website and brand to present offerings from humor writers and content creators.
In a satirical post to the Onion‘s website on Thursday, an article from the so-called “Global Tetrahedron” called InfoWars an “invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses.”
“Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society—values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron,” the satirical article added.
The selloff stems from defamation lawsuits from the families affected by the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, who accused Jones of causing emotional distress when he spent years falsely promoting that the incident was fabricated. Jones has since said he made a mistake in his public characterization of the shooting and has since affirmed that it did happen.
Jones, a prominent figure in alternative media, built a significant online presence through his Infowars brand, founded in 1999. The show has been a combination of talk radio and internet videos that promoted unproven theories surrounding the news and sensational claims of government plots.