The HBO documentary The Truth vs. Alex Jones took four years to complete and the director, Dan Reed, was given full access to the courtroom proceedings in both defamation lawsuits against Jones. The film is well done, but if you aren’t versed in the world of conspiracy theories, there’s a lot you might miss.
Truth vs. Alex Jones takes us on the horrible journey families in Newtown, Connecticut, endured on December 14, 2012, when a gunman shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and the continuing horrors perpetrated by people who fell for the lies broadcast by Jones and his acolytes, which included claims that the attack was a “false flag” meant to force stronger gun control laws, and that the parents of the victims were “crisis actors.” It paints a picture of real people who’ve suffered enduring harm, but the film sadly still isn’t likely to change the mind of a hoaxer (the term often used for Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists).
Lenny Pozner, the father of the youngest victim, appears on film unobscured for the first time in Truth vs. Alex Jones. For nearly 12 years, Pozner has had to obscure his face due to safety concerns, as he faces a non-stop barrage of threats and harassment from hoaxers like Wolfgang Halbig, who was also interviewed for the documentary. Truth vs. Alex Jones shows how the talk show host platformed Halbig, sending him to Newtown along with Dan Bidondi, who was once an InfoWars “reporter.” As of this writing, Halbig is still actively harassing and stalking Pozner, specifically.
Pozner comes across as stoic and matter-of-fact in the documentary. “I wouldn’t be able to deal with this if I was emotional about this … it’s a lot of ugliness; you kind of have to be in the right mindset,” he said in a telephone conversation.
Left out of Truth vs. Alex Jones is the fact that these defamation cases don’t represent the first or even the last incidences of real-world harm that Jones has induced. Edgar Maddison Welch was inspired to “investigate PizzaGate” in 2017, when Jones was openly calling for such actions. Welch drove from North Carolina to Washington, D.C., in 2017 with a gun to liberate imagined sexual abuse victims from a restaurant’s non-existent basement. The list of people who’ve taken InfoWars propaganda into the real world is long and tragic, but Jones is still broadcasting.
Without the knowledge of the many crimes Jones’ rhetoric has inspired throughout the years, Truth vs. Alex Jones viewers might not understand what it took for us to get here as a society. “False flag!” has become the go-to, thought-terminating cliche of the conspiracy theory crowd. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is an organic occurrence. People who consume conspiracy theory content as if it were true have been trained by Jones and others like him to embrace an attitude of oppositional defiance. If the rest of the world accepts that random chaos rules and, well, sh*t happens, then they’re going to declare it all fake.
It becomes ingrained in you (I speak from experience). Once properly trained, every event is seen through the lens of false flags, crisis actors, and nefarious plots which involve thousands of people to cover it up. At one point in Truth vs. Alex Jones, Halbig states that the entirety of Newtown was and still is in on the plot. This is an unwell man who’s built his entire life around lies and hyperbole, and Jones gave him a platform that unleashed a wave of terror. It’s gotten to the point where the very moment a tragic event is reported, the conspiracy theorists are already pitching their speculative fanfic to the world.
While Truth vs. Alex Jones does go into some details about the dangers of misinformation and disinformation, it fails to touch upon the little things in-between. If you haven’t watched the depositions, or listened to the Knowledge Fight podcast, or watched the trials as they happened, or read Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth, you might not see the whole story.
Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, parents of a Sandy Hook victim, who sued Alex Jones for defamation
Truth vs. Alex Jones discusses a hoaxer-favorite topic, a press conference with the father of one of Sandy Hook’s victims, Robbie Parker. Unfortunately the film leaves out the important detail that hoaxers spread the clip with headlines suggesting that Parker was saying, “Should I read off the card?” as if he were reading a script. What Parker actually says is, “Should I start?” It would have been good for the documentary to dive into the mispresentations that encouraged conspiracy theorists to hear what clearly isn’t there.
Much of Truth vs. Alex Jones will make you cry, small parts might make you laugh (like the shocked and angry expressions on the jurors’ faces), but all of the film should make you angry. Angry that social media companies profit from misinformation and disinformation, and angry that, despite the monumental financial judgments against him, Jones just keeps doing this.
You can help fight disinformation and defamation online. Pozner runs an organization called The HONR Network, which you can donate to or volunteer for to help get these lies taken down.
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