Former Infowars employees admit that Alex Jones is a compulsive liar: ‘Truth doesn’t really matter at all’
CNN profiled Infowars founder Alex Jones in a Special Report titled Megaphone for Conspiracy Sunday, in which former Infowars employees spoke out about Jones’s penchant for lying and manufacturing false stories. One longtime employee, Robert Jacobson, who worked for Jones for 13 years, put it very bluntly.
“He will just lie,” Jacobson said. “Straight up lie like nothing’s going on. Like it’s real. And the issue with that is, a lot of people believe him.”
Josh Owens, who worked for Infowars for four years, said that he was encouraged to lie when sent to cover Muslim communities.
“They wanted us to go to these majority Muslim communities and report on why are these people in these communities. What’s going on? This seems suspicious,” Owens said. “There was nothing to it.” “No Sharia law overruling the United States government?” CNN’s Drew Griffin asked. “No, no, but that’s what Jones wanted,” Owens replied. “We made up the stories because there was nothing to report on. In essence, we lied.”
Jones allegedly became angry when Owens was sent to California to report on elevated radiation levels due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, but didn’t find any and posted the true findings on the site. At the time, Jones was selling a dietary supplement that he claimed would protect against nuclear fallout.
“None of us really knew how to use a Geiger counter,” Owens said. “We just posted videos saying that we weren’t finding elevated levels.” “And how was that received?” Griffin asked. “They had never seen him so angry, because we were posting what we were finding,” Owens replied. “I started to get the idea, like, ‘Okay, maybe our job isn’t to report the truth. Maybe our job is to report what Jones thinks the truth is.’”
Another employee, Caolon Robertson, who made a documentary with Jones and regularly appeared on Infowars, said Jones cares about sales above all else.
“He’ll say, ‘Buy these products. Buy these products.’ And at the end, the first thing he’ll say when he goes into the briefing room after a show is, ‘What were the sales during the show?’” Robertson said. “As in how many people signed up live while it was broadcast, not, ‘Was it a good show? Did we expose the truth?’ So, truth doesn’t really matter at all.”
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Video Transcript
ROBERT JACOBSON: He will just lie, straight up lie like nothing's going on, like it's real. And the issue with that is a lot of people believe him.
KYLIE MAR: On a CNN Special Report Sunday about Infowars, founder Alex Jones, titled Megaphone for Conspiracy, former employees opened up about working for the conspiracy theorist, possibly most famous for saying that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. Josh Owens, who worked at Infowars for four years, said they were encouraged to lie.
JOSH OWENS: They wanted us to go to these majority Muslim communities and report on why are these people in these communities, what's going on. This seems suspicious. There was nothing to it. That's what Jones wanted. We made up the stories, because there was nothing to report on. In essence, we lied.
KYLIE MAR: Owen said he began to realize that Infowars wasn't about finding the truth when he was sent to California to report on elevated levels of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan but didn't find what Jones was hoping for.
JOSH OWENS: We just posted a video, saying that we weren't finding elevated levels.
- And how was that received?
JOSH OWENS: They had never seen him so angry because we were posting what we were finding. I started to get the idea, like, OK, maybe our job isn't to report the truth.
KYLIE MAR: Caolan Robertson, who made a documentary with Jones, said that Jones was more concerned about sales than anything else.
CAOLAN ROBERTSON: He'll say, buy these products, buy these products. And at end, the first thing he'll say when he goes into the briefing room after a show is, what were the sales during the show, as in how many people signed up live while it was broadcast, not was it a good show, did we expose the truth. So the truth doesn't really matter, at all.
KYLIE MAR: And Jones's ex-wife, Kelly, agreed that it's all about money, not truth.
KELLY REBECCA NICHOLS: I think it's important for people to understand that they are paying money to and aligning themselves with an outlet that is entirely deceptive and that just wants their money.
- Sounds like a grift, really.
KELLY REBECCA NICHOLS: Yes, I think that really is what it is. It's a con.
