ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This is not a satirical headline. The website Infowars, home to right-wing conspiracy theories, is now owned by The Onion, home to fake headlines like this one - "Oklahoma Law Requires 10 Commandments To Be Displayed In Every Womb." Here's what happened. People whose loved ones were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting sued Infowars founder Alex Jones and won. A judge ordered Jones to sell off his assets, including his website, which made millions while it was active. Sandy Hook family members supported The Onion's decision to buy Infowars.
And so what will the new owners do with the website? Well, our next two guests are here to answer that question. Ben Collins is CEO of Global Tetrahedron, the company that owns The Onion, and John Feinblatt is president of Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that was founded after the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting. Good to have you both here.
BEN COLLINS: Great to be here.
JOHN FEINBLATT: Good to be with you.
SHAPIRO: Ben, I want to quote a piece that The Onion posted today about Infowars, describing the site this way. Quote, "with a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious antiaging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal." (Laughter) Why would you want to own that platform?
COLLINS: Good question. Look, only we really can take this over and make it into something better. It is a - definitely a website that needs to be paved over, needs a fresh coat of paint, absolutely. But we did think it would be the funniest joke possible to take this website that's filled with lies and nonsense and garbage and fill it with better nonsense and garbage. And we really do believe we can do that in the coming years.
SHAPIRO: And John, was there any discussion among the Sandy Hook victims' family members of whether this was actually a good idea? Why did you get behind it?
FEINBLATT: The Sandy Hook families that were involved in litigation supported The Onion's purchase. And why we got involved in it - you know, some people would say it's strange bedfellows, The Onion and Everytown for Gun Safety, but we thought just the opposite. The Onion has been working and writing about the issue of gun safety for years, and certainly that is what we've been working on for years. But we saw an opportunity to take all the information, facts, research, storytelling that were at our fingertips and really rely on The Onion to think about new ways to message this information and new audiences that we could reach.
SHAPIRO: OK. So as you nodded to, there is going to be this relationship going forward between Everytown and Infowars. What is that?
FEINBLATT: It's an advertising agreement that we've - making with The Onion, a multiyear agreement to collaborate. And that could be - for us, come in the form of banner ads or links to Everytown information, video and content that we create together.
SHAPIRO: So Ben, when people visit the relaunched Infowars, once The Onion has totally taken control, what are they actually going to see?
COLLINS: They're going to see, I would say, a similar emotional experience, but told in a different way. Look. Now, the world sort of has cracked up recently, and it's been replaced by hucksters and people selling garbage. And Alex Jones is not the only guy who does this. Alex Jones is the progenitor of this new media ecosystem that's trying to convince you to be afraid of everything. So you go buy some supplements, buy some pills, buy some guns, buy whatever is a balm or a salve for that. And trust me, it's not just Infowars anymore. It's all over your TikTok page. It's all over your Instagram. I'm sure you have been targeted with the one weird trick, miracle cure, elixir thing that exists on your own Instagram account.
SHAPIRO: Oh, yeah.
COLLINS: This has gone relatively unmocked (ph) in American culture over the last few years or probably too unmocked. And trust me, we're going to create some characters, and we're going to create a world that goes right at this thing. They got a free pass for too long, I would say, and we're coming right for them.
SHAPIRO: John, is there a strange bedfellows quality to this very serious issue of gun safety and mass shootings in America being situated in the context of this absurdist satire?
FEINBLATT: Absolutely not. And this is why - the truth is that the currency of Alex Jones and Infowars is fear, and fear has distorted reality and rational thinking. And we think humor is some of the best ways to have a reset and really cut right through the distortion that fear has created. Fear is Alex Jones' currency. Fear is the gun industry's currency, and it's why they encourage people to be armed to the teeth. And we think that actually using humor is a way to cut through that and to reach new audiences that will actually provide a way of level-setting.
SHAPIRO: Ben Collins, I've interviewed you before in a previous chapter of your life. You spent many years as an investigative reporter focused on extremism and conspiracy theories and all of the things that Infowars traded on. So personally, is this moment for you a little bit like Luke Skywalker buying the Death Star in a bankruptcy auction?
COLLINS: (Laughter) Yeah, man. Like, look, I will say, there is some catharsis here. But it's not just my catharsis. It's not just my relief that I'm feeling here. A lot of people can feel some hope out of this. And it's a particularly difficult time. I think a lot of people feel hopeless. A lot of people feel like they can't change anything. And a big reason we wanted to do this is to say, no, actually, there's a little bit of hope here. You know, towards the end, it was basically just us or Alex Jones or his proxies or whatever. It was just - like, it was The Onion and the families versus them.
And I think we all buckled down in the last few days and were like, I really hope this happens. I really hope this thing can give some people some hope that Alex Jones is the cosmic joke we think he is, that he is a farce. This was a ridiculous thing - that he even exists in the way that he does and that he wouldn't, you know, continue operating Infowars unabated. It was either we - he, you know, continued his empire without any interruption, or we made a stupid little website on top of his whole thing. And we are very excited to make the stupid little website.
FEINBLATT: And you know, it's not only hope. It's actually poetic justice. When you think about the pain that Alex Jones visited on the Sandy Hook families, the fact that Everytown and The Onion are joining forces to rewrite the next chapter of Infowars, that's a bit of karmic justice. That's poetic justice.
SHAPIRO: And so in this moment, when the news cycle often feels, and has felt for some time, like a joke that the universe is playing on everybody, what role do you see humor and parody playing more broadly?
COLLINS: It's the most important thing we have. Look, things are just getting dumber. The Onion's catchphrase is tu stultus es, which in Latin means you are stupid...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
COLLINS: ...Means you are dumb. So we are unusually equipped for this moment. And I truly wish we weren't, but we are unusually equipped for this moment. We do need this sort of thing to get us through the next few years. It certainly feels like it's - the stupidity knows no bounds. In those moments, we are really needed, and I'm glad that we get to grow in this way and show people what we are. Like, we just brought back our newspaper, and we can fill an arena full of people with the people who subscribe to it. People really need this right now, and I don't blame them. I know people want to check out from the news, and they don't want to think about all this stuff. This is a way to process it all that is a little bit less painful day to day and gives you some power back. If you can laugh at these people, you do have power over them.
SHAPIRO: Have you picked the launch date?
COLLINS: Eh, don't want to give it away, but it's in January.
SHAPIRO: We can guess.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: Ben Collins is CEO of Global Tetrahedron, which owns The Onion and now Infowars, and John Feinblatt is president of Everytown for Gun Safety. Thank you both.
FEINBLATT: Thank you.
COLLINS: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
