The satirical website’s parent company will have to pay $81,000 a month to the misinformation platform
Satirical website the Onion plans to turn rightwing commentator Alex Jones’s misinformation site Infowars into a parody of itself under a leasing agreement provisionally approved by a Texas court.
Under a proposed deal with court administrators, Infowars would be leased by Global Tetrahedron, a Chicago-based company that owns the Onion, for $81,000 a month for six months, with an option to renew for another six months.
The sum that could be raised under the deal is a surface scratch on the big $1.4bn defamation judgment against Jones for claiming that the Sandy Hook school shooting, during which more than 20 children were killed, was a political hoax designed to further gun control efforts. Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, declared bankruptcy in 2022.
“With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over InfoWars,” Ben Collins, the Onion’s CEO, said in a social media post on Monday, adding that the comedian Tim Heidecker would take over as Infowars creative director.
