The Onion is set to launch InfoWars on July 2. That puts the satirical publication in control of a site founded by Alex Jones, after a year-and-seven-month gap between the auction win and the relaunch.
Jordan LaFlure on 18 months
Jordan LaFlure said The Onion has been after the deal for 18 months. “The idea that The Onion would be purchasing InfoWars sounds laughable, but we have in fact been pursuing it for 18 months with real rigor, with real resourcing behind it and I think people are interested in that level of doggedness,” the executive editor said at The Onion's office.
InfoWars under The Onion
A rainbow-hued InfoWars logo has been on The Onion website for weeks, a simple sign that the relaunch is already being staged before launch day. Leila Brillson, The Onion's chief marketing officer, is part of that rollout, and Tim Heidecker appears in a video announcing the new site with the line, “Alex and his gang of liars and scoundrels have been cast out into the street. … Make no mistake, we will be the new InfoWars.”
Jones and Sandy Hook
Alex Jones said The Onion's grab would “backfire bigtime!” and added, “They are body snatchers, they are skin walkers. They literally take your skin. This is going to backfire bigtime!” The clash lands in the shadow of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre claim, which Jones said was a hoax, and the $1.4 billion in defamation judgments won by relatives of the Sandy Hook victims.
The early focus of the relaunch is Jones and his fear-mongering, hate-spewing, supplement-hawking universe, so the first version of the new site is likely to lean hard into the old brand rather than erase it. That is the practical read here: The Onion is not just taking over InfoWars, it is using the site’s own mythology as the opening act.
