Infowars publisher and far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has launched a new website in order to accomplish what he called bringing “truth back to the media.”
Mr. Jones announced the launch of NewsWars.com during Friday’s broadcast of his popular radio and internet show and said on Twitter afterwards that the website would serve as “a new media platform in the battle against fake news!”
“We launched Infowars in 1997. I was on air two years before that. But in the modern world this is the news war. And it’s a fight between those that tell the truth and those who lie,” Mr. Jones said.
Mr. Jones himself has been considered a purveyor of so-called “fake news” since well before the phrase entered the modern parlance during the 2016 U.S. presidential race, in fact.
He’s infamously taken heat for endorsing false claims concerning the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, and federal investigators said he inspired a gunman to open fire inside a Washington, D.C., pizzeria last year by touting unfounded allegations on his shows and websites about its supposed ties to former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and human trafficking.
He’s also widely popular and boasts of reaching bout 45 million people weekly through his Infowars website and radio and internet broadcasts, including President Trump and people close to his administration, according to Mr. Jones. Mr. Trump appeared on one of those broadcasts while campaigning in 2015, and Infowars has since claimed to have received weekly White House press credentials.
Mr. Jones previously said he planned to expand operations significantly this summed by launching “basically a TV network” and had hired Mr. Trump’s former campaign advisor, Roger Stone, among others, for hosting duties. Absent a launch date, however, NewsWars for now is Mr. Jones’ latest addition to his growing Infowars brand.
NewsWars bears a resemblance to The New York Times’ website, albeit with drastically different content. A blinking stock ticker at the top provided breaking stock quotes alongside an indiscreet link directing to Mr. Jones’ internet broadcast. A few dozens links arranged in columns displayed on a white background beneath touted headlines Saturday afternoon like “Exclusive: Virginia Riots Staged to Bring in Martial Law, Ban Conservative Gatherings,” and “Buzzfeed debunked once again,” while slogans like “Making America Free Again” and “Truth explodes in the light” automatically reloaded beneath the NewsWars logo.
Nearly all of the articles hosted on NewsWars as of Saturday mirrored Infowars content or articles originally posted from other sources, ranging from Breitbart and the Russian government-funded RT to Associated Press, Reuters and The Washington Times, among others.
“Make no mistake, we are now in a news war as globalist-minded monopoly men buy up various mainstream media outlets to spew their own propaganda intended to usher in a post-America world,” reads an announcement introducing the new site. “And that’s why we need to bring truth back to the media, and Newswars.com is ready for that task.”
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.