The Truth vs. Alex Jones

This is a documentry in English based in USA and covers the trails (two of them) that held Alex Jones accountable for lies and harressment of the families who lost their children and other loved one during the aftermath of Sandy Hook killings.

For me it was heartbreaking to watch. The pain and suffering one would experience when loosing a child that young is, described in vivid detail. (I have used the word loss twice now, please remember this word means murder, and killing).

Some reviews here still show a belief that this event never happened, so devasting was the reach of Alexs Jones. Its a tragedy, and in some way ALL Americans are responsibile for the murders of the 26 people, most children under six years. The Americans share the responsibility as they have failed to secure their gun laws so damaged people like Adam Lanza (the murderer) could not kill so many and so many so young.

It might be easier to believe that this never happened, than to say did we do all we could to prevent this from happening? Should we attack our laws, our legislator, our morality?

But instead of doing that, people looked to hid behind the lies of this man, this broken, pain inflicting man, this Alex Jones. The fear of loosing their guns sems to give people a right to lash out and inflict further pain on strangers than to acknowledge the truth.

Alex Jones lied.

The court found that he had lied.

This documentry is ablout his lies, and the continuation of him lying.

Sadly though; people will continue to believe lies no matter what truth they are presented. And era of the avoidance of truth seems just to have began!

Do watch this, no matter your beliefs.

The Truth vs. Alex Jones is mainly two things. On one hand, it is a documentary on the lawsuits filed against alt-news provocateur and InfoWars founder Alex Jones following his coverage of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which he called a "false flag operation" that thousands of people were in on, including the grieving parents who he notoriously dubbed "crisis actors", inciting ceaseless harassment. (He has since also been blacklisted from YouTube.) On the other hand, it is an exploration of Jones as a persona and what it is that intrigues even those who revile him.

This is, most would say, one of the absolute worst human beings alive. As we see the Sandy Hook court proceedings and interrogations, where Jones is finally confronted about his lies in a way where he can't get away the same as he would've done if the cameras were at his command, the film inevitably ends up satisfying -- even as the subject matter is harrowing.

And yet, there's something about Jones as a character -- a boisterous loudmouth whose explanations for things will get so outlandish they read like a Reddit theory about The X-Files as orated by a WWE champion -- that intrigues pretty much all of us. One interviewee explains that you may become glued to the show because "You want to see what else he'll say", echoing the scene from Private Parts where both fans and haters of Howard Stern give their answers to why they keep tuning in.

The movie, which is refreshingly concise given the popularity of the "docuseries", underscores just what a cartoon of a man this is; not in an affectionate way, but in a "car crash that you can't look away from" sort of way (only instead of a car crash it's a great ape who figured out microphones and Rolexes but little else). Even in the courtroom, he can't seem to help doing/saying something goofy.

It also explores his beginnings on Austin public radio and we learn some damning, yet unsurprising details from former colleagues of his about how IW does its fact-finding. In 2011, when there were fears that radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown had made it to the coast of California, and Jones' research team reported that their instruments showed this wasn't the case, IW producers immediately gave them a call demanding that all those logs/videos be destroyed, as they went against the narrative Jones wanted to tell and thus advertise the hot new IW product, in this case an iodine supplement meant to shield against fallout. Few things could more perfectly capture what this website -- and most alternate news in general -- is ultimately about.

In my review of Mike Cernovich's Hoaxed, I wrote that, yes, it's good to be critical of mainstream news/opinion; it's just that you shouldn't switch off your scrutiny just because the news is now coming from a sphere whose politics you happen to like (especially when they'll very provably base their reporting on what they're trying to sell). Looking at the current state of conspiracy theories -- where you seemingly can't go two minutes without seeing a post about space lasers and Satanic agendas -- I'd say my supplication fell on deaf ears.

It may sound like a slippery-slope fallacy, but I've seen it occur in real-time with a friend, whose thought process basically went "Well this guy validated by opinions about Islam and the anti-gun media, so he MUST be correct about chemtrails". It's often said that Alex Jones only appeals to those who already agree with him -- that he exists, not to change your mind, but to tell you that you're already right and get you to pay him to say it more -- and while it's true that that's how he gets ya, those people go from bad to worse (whichever tier of "bad" they were already on) once Jones starts telling them about some other things the Bad Guys are up to.

As this film shows, Jones is arguably the most important figure in the normalization of conspiracy nonsense we've seen during these past few years. We're reminded that during the 2016 presidential race -- which involved a considerable boost for alternate news -- the Trumpster himself sang Jones' praises. We're shown there was a period where InfoWars garnered more viewers than CNN.

I myself once wrote about how this magnitude of conspiracy-theorist thinking was well underway to becoming more mainstream, due in no small part to the popularity of InfoWars. And like I said, now it's everywhere. Hell, compared to some of the theories I covered in The Big Conspiracy Guide of 2023, Jones is falling behind (which is another prediction I had; that he would soon be deemed "too vanilla" if this keeps spiraling out of control).

In 2021, many of us learned that even he -- the guy with the gay frog water thesis and the spiels about "weather weapons" -- still isn't insane enough for the QAnon theories (which is to say nothing of how normal he looked next to Kanye West in 2022). Regardless, he is become Death, the destroyer of non-flat worlds.

Again, it's very satisfying to see him confronted in a setting where he can't hide or yell loudly enough at reality until reality gives up, but in a lot of ways, this is a horrifying film. Like the recent Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, its presentation is sometimes cheesier than seems appropriate for the topic, but it doesn't take away from the film's importance.

I tried to stay away from political discussions and concepts because I am not comfortable with being in that environment but Alex Jones really is one absolute egocentric and self-centered a person. The Truth vs. Alex Jones is a pretty good documentary about how Jones misinformation about the Sandy Hook shootings have damaged the victim's families and the insanity and craziness of Jones himself.

With interesting discussions explored, the documentary offers interesting and sometimes, frustrating discussions and scenarios that helped bring forth the information and the situations to light. Including some good uses of music and emotional atmospheres throughout. Filmmaker Dan Reed, previously made Leaving Neverland which I didn't like due to it's poor structure and annoying pacing, improves his direction with how he handles the materials and the standards of not being too exploitative nor offensive to it's subject and victims.

There are some moments that are pretty terrifying regarding some subjects, certain individuals and Jones himself as they perfectly capture how America has become fundamentally broken and damaged. While the structure is the typical HBO style of documentaries and there are some topics I kinda of wish they would explore a little more, I think this documentary does a good job on exploring it's subject.

Not easy to watch for some but I recommend it.

I lost an old friend to Alex Jones when Infowars did a special on the Bilderberg group (basically "Jewish cabal controls the world"). This friend, a successful game designer with a college degree, accused me of not being open to different interpretations of facts, and I cut ties with him because I had to admit to myself that you cannot penetrate a wall of BS with rationality when people want to believe what they want to believe - in his case, antisemitism.

I was hoping this documentary would dwell a little more on how we have come to this distorted scary place and what a major part Alex Jones has played in this. It is fitting to give the Sandy Hook parents so much room, to show that they are real people whose kids were really murdered. And you can deduct from Jones' own statements that he thought he could escape justice with the mob power of his (ab)user base. But unfortunately the film plays out as a courtroom drama and will therefore do little to dissuade the (mis)believers. Don't get me wrong, it's great material, and I understand that the director wants to use as much of it as he can. But those who think Alex Jones is a false prophet will just receive yet another confirmation, while those who take him for a civil rights hero will still find it possible to confirm that.

It's an important documentary in terms of respecting real victims and giving them a voice. But I wish the approach had been broader so as to describe just how many myths on how many subjects this man has created and how many millions of people he has harmed.

The world got a horrible shock in December 2012 when a psychopath walked into a school in Connecticut and murdered several children. Most people were rightly horrified. Unfortunately, radio host Alex Jones - known for whipping up conspiracy theories - called it a false flag event, and his listeners ate it up.

Dan Reed's documentary "The Truth vs. Alex Jones" looks at Jones's rumor-mongering and how this led to harassment of the victims' parents. The harassment got to the point where the parents filed a lawsuit against Jones. Much of the documentary shows scenes inside the trial, with Jones trying to pretend that he didn't try to harm the parents.

The main thing to take away from the documentary is that Jones is the latest in a long line of blowhards making things up to further their careers (such as Joe McCarthy and Rush Limbaugh). Sadly, their fans - one might call them cultists - believe the lies and proceed to torment the victims. One can only hope that criminal prosecution will bring down these mendacious goons.

Not the greatest documentary, but I recommend it.