The decision by a Texas jury last week to have Alex Jones face punitive damages of more than $45 million in a lawsuit brought by the parents of a victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Jesse Lewis, was a ” reckoning that took 10 years to complete,” said the main media correspondent for CNN Brian Stelter.
Two Chicago-based podcast hosts have spent the past 5 years holding Jones and his Infowars network accountable. His show, Knowledge Fight, has produced more than 700 episodes and uses comedy to “tell crazy lies,” Stelter said in Sunday’s Reliable Sources.
Hosts Dan Friesen and Jordan Holmes traveled to Texas to witness Jones’ trial firsthand. Friesen said the most powerful moment inside the courtroom was watching Jesse Lewis’ mother, Scarlett Lewis, give her testimony and speak directly to Jones.
“I think pretty much everyone will carry that for the rest of their lives,” Friesen said.
Co-hosts have covered Jones since 2017, watching his transformation from a seemingly untouchable figure to one who is now at serious legal and financial risk.
“For this entire period of time, its content itself was essentially empty,” Friesen said. “Looking at it from my perspective just got a lot less interesting,” he added.
But despite Jones’ legal troubles, Holmes said the culture he helped generate has gotten a lot bigger.
“Conspiracy culture is something that is created through the cracks of our regular society,” Holmes said.
And while his podcast focuses on examining Jones and his tactics, Holmes said the trial was really about the victims.
“People would like to focus on Alex being a bombastic character that we can mock and make fun of, but this is not about him,” Holmes said.
The podcast format allows presenters to go beyond Jones as a character and delve into the mechanics of what he is doing and why these conspiracy narratives exist.
“We approach this with the understanding that this is a serious matter,” Friesen said. “But also that to make it interesting for anyone to listen to, we have to make it fun.”
Friesen has listened to countless hours of Jones’ show and calls it “an incredibly boring experience”.
“The reason I do this is because I can stand this boredom,” Friesen said. He supports the task to help others gain insights into the phenomenon of disinformation.
“So they can be in a place where they can better understand what Alex is doing and what he brings to the table,” he said.
Many hope that the legal and financial risk Jones is now facing will help reduce misinformation and the culture of conspiracy. But Friesen is not convinced it will be a heavy blow.
“Conspiracy producers and people who engage in the kind of conduct that Alex does end up becoming a little bit more experienced,” Friesen said. “They end up learning where the limits are of what they can do and what they can get away with,” he concluded.
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
