• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 14, 2024

In a strange case of art and life coinciding, the satirical publication The Onion has won an auction for Alex Jones' right-wing Infowars site. 

When this reporter saw the headline, he assumed it was a send-up. But no: the bid was approved by the families of the Sandy Hook school shooting victims, who won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones after he had charged the killing of 20 schoolchildren was a hoax.

The size of the winning bid was not revealed. But the victims’ families agreed to accept a smaller payout to increase the value of The Onion’s bid, The Washington Post reports.  

So now The Onion owns the website, mailing list and other assets that Jones had controlled for 25 years.  

“The Onion is proud to acquire Infowars, and we look forward to continuing its storied tradition of scaring the site’s users with lies until they fork over their cold, hard cash,” said Onion CEO Ben Collins in a statement, the Post adds. 

What The Onion will do with this property can only be imagined.   

The  Onion plans to reintroduce Infowars as a parody of itself in January, Collins told the New York Times. The nonprofit group, Everytown for Gun Safety, will be the exclusive advertiser during the relaunch as part of a multi-year agreement.  

Jones reportedly alleged that the sealed bidding was “rigged.” 

This news comes only seven months after Global Tetrahedron acquired the Chicago-based Onion from G/O Media and weeks after it went back into print.

Global Tetrahedron is the name of a fictional company depicted in a 1999 book by the Onion staff. The firm is owned by Jeff Lawson, a co-founder and former chief executive of Twilio.

We can expect to see parodies of right-wing conspiracy sites. But for now, it is hard to find anything to laugh at.

“We were told this outcome would be nearly impossible, but we are no strangers to impossible fights, says Robbie Parker, whose six-year old daughter Emilie was killed in the shooting, in a statement. The world needs to see that having a platform does not mean you are above accountability — the dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for.”