Iconic news parody and satire site The Onion has done something incredible. In an age where many of the factual news outlet headlines read like something The Onion would publish, the site has officially purchased Infowars. The site, once owned by disgraced blowhard Alex Jones, was up for public auction after Jones filed for bankruptcy. Why, you may ask, did he need to put his outlet on the auction block? Well, it was because he owed the Sandy Hook school shooting victim’s families upwards of $1.4 billion awarded from a defamation lawsuit.
Needless to say, Jones and his Free Speech Systems company didn’t have that kind of cash on hand. So, bye bye Infowars.
Ben Collins, Chief Executive of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, says The Onion plans to reintroduce the publication in the new year as “a parody of itself, mocking weird internet personalities,” like “Mr. Jones who traffic in misinformation and health supplements.”
“We thought this would be a hilarious joke,” Collins said. “This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers and everything’s kind of insane.”
The purchase was done with the complete support of the Sandy Hook families. “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,” Chris Mattei, lawyer for the families, said of the purchase.
“The dissolution of Alex Jones’s assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, said.
We’ll let you know what we hear about this and other news.
