Alex Jones lost Infowars but succeeded in ushering in a new era of right-wing media
The sale of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ media empire is a major blow to one of the defining independent media brands that ushered in a new era of fringe thinking, mainstreaming conspiracy theories once banished to the edges of the internet.
And while Jones’ Infowars brand is now owned by the satirical news site
The Onion
, media researchers and conservative media experts say its legacy will live on thanks to the far-right media ecosystem it helped inspire, which continues to flourish.
“Right-wing media is robust and only becoming more robust,” said A.J. Bauer, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Alabama who focuses on conservative news. And with some emboldened after Donald Trump’s 2024 election win, “this can be a race to the bottom in terms of misin...