Alexander Emric (or Emerick) Jones (born February 11, 1974) is an American radio show host and conspiracy theorist. He hosts The Alex Jones Show from Austin, Texas, which airs on the Genesis Communications Network across the United States and online. His website, Infowars.com, is a conspiracy theories and fake news website.
Jones has been the center of many controversies, including his promotion of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting conspiracy theories, and his aggressive opposition to gun control in a debate with Piers Morgan. He has accused the US government of being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, and the filming of fake Moon landings to hide NASA's secret technology.
He has claimed that several governments and big business have colluded to create a "New World Order" through "manufactured economic crises, sophisticated surveillance tech and--above all--inside-job terror attacks that fuel exploitable hysteria". Jones has described himself as a libertarian and paleoconservative, and has been described by others as conservative, right-wing, alt-right and far-right.
New York magazine described Jones as "America's leading conspiracy theorist", and the Southern Poverty Law Center describes him as "the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America". When asked about these labels, Jones said that he is "proud to be listed as a thought criminal against Big Brother". In addition to Infowars, Alex Jones also operates the websites NewsWars and PrisonPlanet.
Video Alex Jones
Early life
Jones was born in 1974 in Dallas, Texas, and grew up in the Dallas suburb of Rockwall and the city of Austin, Texas. His father is a dentist and his mother a homemaker. In his video podcasts, he reports he is of Irish, German, Welsh, mostly English, and partially Native American descent. He was a lineman on his high school's football team and graduated from Anderson High School in Austin in 1993. As a teenager, he read conservative journalist Gary Allen's None Dare Call It Conspiracy, which had a profound influence on him and which he calls "the easiest-to-read primer on The New World Order". After high school, Jones briefly attended Austin Community College but dropped out.
Maps Alex Jones
Career
Jones began his career in Austin with a live, call-in format public-access cable television program. In 1996, Jones switched format to radio, hosting a show named The Final Edition on KJFK (98.9 FM). Ron Paul was running for Congress and was a guest on his show several times. In his early shows, Jones frequently talked about his belief that the United States government was behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, using the incident to put down a growing "states' rights movement". In 1998, he released his first film, America Destroyed By Design.
In 1998, Jones organized a successful effort to build a new Branch Davidian church, as a memorial to those who died during the 1993 fire that ended the government's siege of the original Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas. He often featured the project on his public-access television program and claimed that David Koresh and his followers were peaceful people who were murdered by Attorney General Janet Reno and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms during the siege. In the same year, he was removed from a George W. Bush rally at Bayport Industrial District, Texas. Jones interrupted governor Bush's speech, demanding that the Federal Reserve and Council on Foreign Relations be abolished. Journalist David Weigel, reporting on the incident, said Jones "seemed to launch into public events as if flung from another universe."
In 1999, Jones tied with Shannon Burke for that year's "Best Austin Talk Radio Host" poll, as voted by The Austin Chronicle readers. Later that year, he was fired from KJFK-FM for refusing to broaden his topics. His views were making the show hard to sell to advertisers, according to the station's operations manager. Jones stated:
It was purely political, and it came down from on high ... I was told 11 weeks ago to lay off [Bill] Clinton, to lay off all these politicians, to not talk about rebuilding the church, to stop bashing the Marines, A to Z.
He began broadcasting his show by Internet connection from his home.
In early 2000, Jones was one of seven Republican candidates for state representative in Texas House District 48, an open swing district based in Austin, Texas. Jones stated that he was running "to be a watchdog on the inside" but withdrew from the race after a couple of weeks. In July, a group of Austin Community Access Center (ACAC) programmers claimed that Jones used legal proceedings and ACAC policy to intimidate them or get their shows thrown off the air.
In 2001, his show was syndicated on approximately 100 stations. After the 9/11 attack, Jones began to speak of a conspiracy by the Bush administration as being behind the attack, which caused a number of the stations that had previously carried him to drop his program, according to Will Bunch.
On June 8, 2006, while on his way to cover a meeting of the Bilderberg Group in Ottawa, Jones was stopped and detained at the Ottawa airport by Canadian authorities who confiscated his passport, camera equipment, and most of his belongings. He was later allowed to enter Canada lawfully. Jones said about the reason for his immigration hold, "I want to say, on the record, it takes two to tango. I could have handled it better."
On September 8, 2007, he was arrested while protesting at 6th Avenue and 48th Street in New York City. He was charged with operating a megaphone without a permit. Two others were also cited for disorderly conduct when his group crashed a live television show featuring Geraldo Rivera. In an article, one of Jones' fellow protesters said, "It was ... guerrilla information warfare."
On June 6, 2013, Jones addressed international media for the annual Bilderberg conference in Watford, England. He gave an hour-long speech to around 2,000 protesters in the grounds of The Grove hotel, where he was "rapturously welcomed", "surrounded by cameras and peppered with questions".
On July 21, 2016, following the 2016 Republican National Convention, Jones and Roger Stone began plotting the removal of Ted Cruz from his Senate seat after he failed to endorse Donald Trump as the Republican presidential candidate, with potential challengers Katrina Pierson and Dan Patrick mooted as replacements in the upcoming Texas election for Senate in 2018.
On July 6, 2017, alongside Paul Joseph Watson, Jones began hosting a contest to create the best "CNN Meme", in which the winner would receive $20,000. The contest was created in response to CNN releasing an article regarding a controversial Reddit user that had created a pro-Trump, anti-CNN meme.
On January 23, 2018, it was announced that Jones would be working with New York Times best-selling author Neil Strauss on his upcoming book, titled 'The Secret History of the Modern World & the War for the Future'.
Sexual harassment and antisemitism claims
In February 2018, Jones was accused by two former employees of antisemitism, anti-black racism and sexual harassment of males and females. Jones denied the allegations.
Two former employees at Infowars filed separate complaints against Jones.
Radio, websites and mail-order business
The Alex Jones Show is broadcast nationally by the Genesis Communications Network to more than 90 AM and FM radio stations in the United States, including WWCR, a shortwave radio station. The Sunday show also airs on KLBJ. In 2010, the show attracted around 2 million listeners each week.
According to journalist Will Bunch, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, the show has a demographic heavier in younger viewers than other conservative pundits due to Jones's "highly conspiratorial tone and Web-oriented approach". Bunch has also stated that Jones "feed[s] on the deepest paranoia". According to Alexander Zaitchik of Rolling Stone magazine, in 2011 he had a larger on-line audience than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh combined.
Infowars
Jones is the Publisher and Director of the website Infowars.com. The Infowars website receives approximately 10 million monthly visits, making it more popular than some mainstream news websites such as The Economist and Newsweek.
NewsWars
In August 2017, Jones announced the launch of NewsWars.com, a site Jones said was intended to battle fake news.
PrisonPlanet
Alex Jones also operates PrisonPlanet.com.
Consumer products
A 2017 piece for German magazine Der Spiegel by Veit Medick indicated that two-thirds of Jones' funds derive from sales of a successful range of his own products. These products are marketed through the Infowars website and through advertising spots on Jones' show. They include dietary supplements, toothpaste, bulletproof vests and "brain pills" "appealing to those who believes Armageddon is near", according to Medick.
In August 2017, Californian medical company Labdoor, Inc reported on tests applied to six of Jones' dietary supplement products. These included a product named 'Survival Shield', which was found by Labdoor to contain only iodine, and a product named 'Oxy-Powder', which comprised a compound of magnesium oxide and citric acid; common ingredients in dietary supplements. Labdoor indicated no evidence of prohibited or harmful substances, but cast doubt on Infowars' marketing claims for these products, and asserted that the quantity of the ingredients in certain products would be "too low to be appropriately effective".
On a segment of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver stated that Jones spends "nearly a quarter" of his on-air time promoting products sold on his website, many of which are purported solutions to medical and economic problems claimed to be caused by the conspiracy theories described on his show.
Views
Mainstream sources have described Jones as a conservative, far-right, alt-right, and a conspiracy theorist. Jones has described himself as a libertarian and a paleoconservative. He has frequently supported Donald Trump and consistently denounced Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Gun rights
Jones is a vocal gun rights advocate. MTV have labeled him a "staunch Second Amendment supporter", while The Telegraph have called him a "gun-nut". He has been widely quoted in international media for claiming, in a debate with Piers Morgan, that "1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms". Jones was referencing the American Revolutionary War in relation to theoretical gun control measures taken by the government. He has been reported to own around 50 firearms.
Vaccines
Jones is well-known and widely reported in media for both his opposition to vaccines, and his views on vaccine controversies. On June 16, 2017, Vox covered his claim that the introduction of Julia, an autistic Sesame Street Muppet, was "designed to normalize autism, a disorder caused by vaccines." On November 20, 2017, The New Yorker quoted Jones as claiming Infowars was "defending people's right to not be forcibly infected with vaccines". ThinkProgress have declared that he "continues to endanger children by convincing their parents that vaccines are dangerous." Jones has specifically disputed the safety and effectiveness of MMR vaccines.
Weather weapons
Mother Jones has claimed that Jones is a believer in weather weapons, and Salon has covered his claim "that the president has access to weather weapons capable of not only creating tornadoes but also moving them around, on demand." His belief in weather warfare has been widely reported by mainstream media. He has claimed that Hurricane Irma may have been geo-engineered.
White genocide
Jones is a believer in the white genocide conspiracy theory. Media Matters covered his claim that NFL players protesting the national anthem were "kneeling to white genocide" and violence against whites, which the SPLC featured in their headlines review. On October 2, 2017, Jones claimed that Democrats and communists were plotting imminent "white genocide" attacks. His reporting and public views on the topic have received support and coverage from white nationalist publications and groups, such as AltRight.com and the New Zealand National Front.
Controversies
Jones has been the center of many controversies, such as the one surrounding his actions and statements about gun control after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He has accused the United States government of being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11 attacks. In 2009, Jones claimed that a convicted con man's scheme to take over a long-vacant, would-be for-profit prison in Hardin, Montana was part of a FEMA plot to detain US citizens in concentration camps. Jones was in a "media crossfire" in 2011, which included criticism by Rush Limbaugh, when the news spread that Jared Lee Loughner, the perpetrator of the 2011 Tucson shooting, had been "a fan" of the 9/11 conspiracy film Loose Change of which Jones had been an executive producer. His website Infowars.com has been described as a fake news website and has been accused of spreading conspiracy theories.
Khan Shaykhun chemical attack
In April 2017, Jones was criticized for claiming that the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack was a hoax and a "false flag". Jones stated that the attack was potentially carried out by civil defense group White Helmets, which he claims are an Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist front financed by George Soros.
School shootings
Jones has been widely criticized for propagating conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting being false flag operations engineered by gun control advocates. In particular, he has stated that "no one died" in Sandy Hook and that Stoneman Douglas survivor David Hogg was a crisis actor. Claims made in support of these theories have been proven false.
Legal action
In February 2017, the lawyers of James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, sent Jones a letter demanding an apology and retraction for his role in pushing the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Under Texas law, Jones was given a month to comply or be subject to a libel suit. In March 2017, Alex Jones apologized to Alefantis for promulgating the conspiracy theory and retracted his allegations.
In April 2017, the Chobani yogurt company filed a lawsuit against Jones for his article that claims that the company's factory in Idaho, which employs refugees, was connected to a 2016 child sexual assault and a rise in tuberculosis cases. As a result of the lawsuit, Jones issued an apology and retraction of his allegations in May 2017.
In March 2018, Brennan Gilmore, who shared a video he captured of a car hitting anti-racism protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina, filed a lawsuit against Jones and six others. According to the lawsuit, Jones said that Gilmore was acting as part of a false flag operation conducted by disgruntled government "deep state" employees in furtherance of a coup against President Trump. Gilmore alleges he has been receiving death threats from Jones' audience.
Relationship with Donald Trump
In December 2015, Jones initially "formed a bond" with Donald Trump, after the presidential candidate appeared on The Alex Jones Show, claiming that Jones had an "amazing reputation". During the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton criticized Donald Trump for his ties to Alex Jones. Jones said that Trump called him on the day after the election to thank him for his help in the campaign. Since Donald Trump took office, it has been claimed Jones communicates with the President through aides, something which Chief of Staff John Kelly had reportedly tried to block. In June 2017, journalist and commentator Bill Moyers wrote that Trump and Jones explicitly "operate as a tag team".
Television shows and interviews
In January 2013, Jones was invited to speak on Piers Morgan's show after promoting an online petition to deport Morgan because of his support of gun control laws. The interview turned into "a one-person shoutfest, as Jones riffed about guns, oppressive government, the flag, his ancestors' role in Texan independence, and what flag Morgan would have on his tights if they wrestled." The event drew widespread coverage, and according to The Huffington Post, Morgan and others such as Glenn Beck "agreed that Jones was a terrible spokesman for gun rights". Jones's appearance on the show was a top trending Twitter topic the following morning.
On June 9, 2013, Jones appeared as a guest on the BBC's television show Sunday Politics, during a discussion about conspiracy theories surrounding the Bilderberg Group meetings with presenter Andrew Neil and journalist David Aaronovitch. A critic of such theories, Aaronovitch implied that, since Jones had not been killed for exposing conspiracies, they either do not exist or that Jones is a part of them himself. Jones began shouting and interrupting, and Andrew Neil ended the interview, describing Jones as "an idiot" and "the worst person I've ever interviewed". According to Neil on Twitter, Jones was still shouting until he knew that he was off-air.
Personal life
Jones has three children with ex-wife Kelly Jones. The couple divorced in 2015. In 2017, Kelly sought sole or joint custody of their children due to Alex's behavior. She claimed "he's not a stable person" and "I'm concerned that he is engaged in felonious behavior, threatening a member of Congress" (Adam Schiff). Alex's attorney responded by claiming that "he's playing a character" and describing him as a "performance artist". In court, Jones denied playing a character and he called his show "the most bona fide, hard-core, real McCoy thing there is, and everybody knows it." The court awarded Kelly the power to decide where their children live.
His son, Rex Jones, has worked for Infowars, receiving media attention for a video which was critical of gun control and BuzzFeed News. Jones has credited Rex for convincing him to support Donald Trump as a presidential candidate, in what New Matilda described as a "surprisingly touching confession".
Media
Films
Author
Film subject
References
External links
- Official website
- Alex Jones on IMDb
Source of article : Wikipedia
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