THE SCOOP
(Semafor) Some of the subjects of Alex Jones’ darkest and wildest conspiracy theories could end up taking over his iconic, unhinged InfoWars brand in less than two months.
Over the past several years, courts in Connecticut and Texas have ruled that the face of the far-right network must pay the families of victims of the 2012 shooting in Sandy Hook nearly $1.5 billion in damages for repeatedly claiming falsely on his show that the shooting never happened. On Tuesday, a Houston judge ruled that a bankruptcy trustee could begin to liquidate and put up for auction Free Speech Systems, Jones’ media company and the parent of InfoWars.
The open auction has sparked some serious behind-the-scenes interest among liberal groups and some nonprofit organizations dedicated to fighting misinformation, who see it as an opportunity to transform an infamous source of online hatred, conspiracies, and oddities into something quite different.
Angelo Carusone, the president of the left-leaning conservative media watchdog group Media Matters for America, confirmed that the organization would explore bidding on InfoWars.
“We are diligently considering this acquisition,” he said in an email.
Carusone said that in addition to taking control of the brand’s eponymous digital channels, he was equally interested in what InfoWars hasn’t published, and wondered if the archives could contain some interesting revelations.
“As we saw with the Tucker tapes, the archives could contain unbroadcasted material that ends up having real news value — not schadenfreude — but actually useful information,” he said.
Other left-leaning media players closer to home also see an opportunity.
Jeff Rotkoff, the publisher of the new Texas-focused digital publication The Barbed Wire, told Semafor that although he isn’t currently in a position to buy the Austin-based company outright, he was having conversations with people in his network and was seriously considering how the site could partner with other interests or publishers to get in on the bidding. In a brief telephone conversation this week, Rotkoff, who is also the Texas state director of Democratic-aligned super PAC Forward Majority, said that he remembers being baffled while watching Jones on local television decades ago when he was in college in Texas.
