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Alex Jones
Jones, circa 2009
Born	Alexander Emerick Jones (1974-02-11) February 11, 1974 (age 50) Dallas, Texas, United States
Occupation(s)	Radio host, film producer
Known for	Various conspiracy theories such as 9/11 Truth and New World Order theories;
Website	InfoWars.com PrisonPlanet.TV

Alexander Emerick "Alex" Jones (born February 11, 1974) is an American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist, and documentary filmmaker. His syndicated news/talk show The Alex Jones Show, based in Austin, Texas, airs via the Genesis Communications Network on 118 AM and FM radio stations and WWCR Radio shortwave across the United States, and on the Internet. His websites include Infowars.com and PrisonPlanet.com. His YouTube channel has been viewed over 400 million times.

Jones has been the center of many controversies, including his controversial statements about gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He has accused the U.S. government of being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing, and the September 11 attacks He believes that government and big business have colluded to create a New World Order through "manufactured economic crises, sophisticated surveillance tech and—above all—inside-job terror attacks that fuel exploitable hysteria". Jones describes himself as a libertarian and a paleoconservative. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Jones as "the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America."

Early life

Jones was born on February 11, 1974 in Dallas, Texas, and grew up in the suburb of Rockwall and Austin, Texas. His father is a dentist and his mother a homemaker. In one of his video podcasts, he reports that he is of German, Welsh, mostly British, and partially Native American descent. He was a lineman on his high school's football team and graduated from Anderson High School in Austin, Texas in 1993. As a teenager, he read Gary Allen's None Dare Call It Conspiracy, which strongly impacted him, and which he calls "the easiest-to-read primer on The New World Order". After high school, Jones attended Austin Community College.

Career

He began his career in Austin with a live, call-in format public-access television cable TV program. In 1996, Jones switched format to KJFK, hosting a show named The Final Edition. During this time Ron Paul was running for congress and was a guest on Jones's show several times. The two share many beliefs and have been friends since then. In his early shows, he frequently talked about his belief that the U.S. government was behind the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, using the incident to put down a growing "states rights movement". In 1998, he released his first film, America Destroyed By Design.

In 1998, Jones organized a successful effort to build a new Branch Davidian church, as a memorial to those who died during the 1993 fire that ended the government's siege of the original Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas. He often featured the project on his public-access television program and claimed that David Koresh and his followers were peaceful people who were murdered by Attorney General Janet Reno and the ATF during the siege.

In 1999, he tied with Shannon Burke for that year's "Best Austin Talk Radio Host" poll as voted by The Austin Chronicle readers. Later that year, he was fired from KJFK-FM for refusing to broaden his topics, his viewpoints making the show hard to sell to advertisers, according to the station's operations manager. Jones stated: "It was purely political, and it came down from on high ... I was told 11 weeks ago to lay off Clinton, to lay off all these politicians, to not talk about rebuilding the church, to stop bashing the Marines, A to Z". He began spreading his show via internet connection from his home.

In early 2000, Jones was one of seven Republican candidates for state representative in Texas House District 48, an open seat swing district based in Austin, Texas. Jones stated that he was running "to be a watchdog on the inside", but withdrew from the race after a couple of weeks.

In July, a group of Austin Community Access Center (ACAC) programmers claimed that Jones used legal proceedings and ACAC policy to intimidate them or get their shows thrown off the air.

In 2001, his show was syndicated on approximately 100 stations. After the 9/11 terrorist attack, Jones began to speak of a conspiracy by the Bush administration as being behind the attack, which caused a number of the stations that had previously carried him to drop his program.

On June 8, 2006, while on his way to cover a meeting of the Bilderberg group in Ottawa, Canada, Jones was stopped and detained at the Ottawa airport by Canadian authorities who confiscated his passport, camera equipment and most of his belongings. He was later allowed to enter Canada lawfully. Jones said regarding the reason for his immigration hold: "I want to say, on the record, it takes two to tango. I could have handled it better."

On September 8, 2007, he was arrested while protesting at 6th Avenue and 48th Street in New York City. He was charged with operating a bullhorn without a permit. Two others were also cited for disorderly conduct when his group crashed a live television show featuring Geraldo Rivera. In an article one of Jones's fellow protesters said, "It was ... guerrilla information warfare."

Media

The Alex Jones Show syndicated radio program is broadcast nationally by the Genesis Communications Network to more than ninety AM and FM radio stations in the United States, and to WWCR Radio shortwave. Live broadcast times are weekdays from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. CST and Sundays from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. CST. The Sunday broadcast is also broadcast by Emmis Communications' KLBJ Radio.

As of 2013, according to Jones, the radio show has over 15 million listeners a week, which would be 2.1 million per day. Also, the show reportedly has a demographic heavier in younger viewers than other conservative pundits. In 2011, he had a larger on-line audience than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh combined.

Jones is also the operator of several websites centered on news and information about civil liberties issues, global government and a wide variety of current events topics. As of July 2014, his YouTube channel, TheAlexJonesChannel, has received more than 404 million views and 833,733 subscriptions.

He has been able to mobilize his followers to create Google bomb actions that bring particular terms to the top of a search engine listing, a tactic which has then inspired other online media, such as the Drudge Report, to cover the story.

Views on climate change

Jones denies the existence of human-induced climate change, describing the underlying science as deceitful and merely a means for global governance and global redistribution of wealth.

Reception and impact

Mainstream sources have described Jones as a conservative, a right-wing conspiracy theorist, and a libertarian. Jones sees himself as a libertarian and rejects being described as a right-winger. He has also called himself a paleoconservative and an "aggressive constitutionalist".

Jones has been the center of many controversies, such as the controversy surrounding his actions and statements about gun control after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He has accused the U.S. government of being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11 attacks. Jones was in a "media crossfire" in 2011, which included criticism by Rush Limbaugh, when the news spread that Jared Lee Loughner, perpetrator of the 2011 Tucson shooting, had been "a fan" of the 9/11 conspiracy film Loose Change, of which Jones had been an executive producer.

In January 2013, Jones was invited to speak on Piers Morgan's show after promoting an online petition to deport Morgan due to his support of gun control laws. The interview turned into "a one-person shoutfest, as Jones riffed about guns, oppressive government, the flag, his ancestors' role in Texan independence, and what flag Morgan would have on his tights if they wrestled". The event drew widespread coverage, and according to The Huffington Post, Morgan and others such as Glenn Beck "agreed that Jones was a terrible spokesman for gun rights". Jones's appearance on the show was a top trending Twitter topic the following morning.

On June 9, 2013, Jones appeared as a guest on the BBC's television show Sunday Politics. After a discussion about conspiracy theories surrounding the Bilderberg Group meetings with presenter Andrew Neil and journalist David Aaronovitch, a critic of such theories, which was dominated by Jones's shouting and regular interruptions, Andrew Neil ended the item, describing Jones as "an idiot" and "the worst person I've ever interviewed". Jones was still shouting, according to Neil on Twitter, until he knew he was off-air.

Films

Author

Film subject

Acting

See also

• 9/11 conspiracy theories

References

1. Byford, Jovan (2011-10-12). Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 11. ISBN 9780230349216. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
2. Alex Jones: Boston explosion a government conspiracy
3. Rolling Stone
4. List of Alex Jones Radio Show Affiliated Stations.
5. http://www.wwcr.com
6. Fox News
7. "The Alex Jones Show". Tune In. Retrieved January 13, 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
8. ^ "TheRealAlexJones About". Retrieved July 30, 2014.
9. ^ "Alex Jones' pro-gun tirade at Piers Morgan on British presenter's own show". The Guardian. London. January 8, 2013. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
10. ^ Zaitchik, Alexander (2011-03-02). "Meet Alex Jones, the Talk Radio Host Behind Charlie Sheen's Crazy Rants". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on March 29, 2011. Retrieved 2011-03-24. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
11. ^ Stahl, Jeremy (September 6, 2011). "Where Did 9/11 Conspiracies Come From?". Slate. Retrieved September 11, 2011. Cite error: The named reference "Stahl" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
12. Alexander Zaitchik (March 2, 2011). "Meet Alex Jones". Rolling Stone. Retrieved February 24, 2013.
13. "Alex Jones Profile". Southern Poverty Law Center.
14. Jones, Alex. Coast to Coast AM. January 27, 2007.
15. ^ Alex Jones Puts Anti-Semitic Caller in His Place!! (2011-03-04). Alex Jones Channel/Prisonplanet.tv/Genesis Communications Network. Retrieved April 06, 2014.
16. "Meet Alex Jones". Rolling Stone. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
17. Howard Stern Radio Show, February 26, 2013.
18. ^ Nichols, Lee (December 10, 1999). "Psst, It's a Conspiracy: KJFK Gives Alex Jones the Boot Media Clips". The Austin Chronicle.
19. ^ "How Radio Host Alex Jones Has Cornered the Bipartisan Paranoia Market". New York. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
20. ^ "Meet Alex Jones". Rolling Stone. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
21. Kay, Jonathan (2011-05-17). Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground. HarperCollins. pp. 26–. ISBN 9780062004819. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
22. Connie Mabin (April 19, 2000). "Branch Davidians hope a new church can close wounds". The Independent. UK. Associated Press. Retrieved January 29, 2011.
23. "Best of Austin 1999 Readers Poll". 1999. Retrieved 2007-08-14.
24. Scott S. Greenberger (January 4, 2000). "Nine to seek Greenberg's House seat" (fee required). Austin American-Statesman. p. B1.
25. Nichols, Lee (2000-07-14). "Alex Jones: Conspiracy Victim or Evil Mastermind?". Austin Chronicle. Archived from the original on 2012-01-02. Retrieved 2008-05-20. Alex Jones is no stranger to conspiracy theories.
26. ^ Bunch, Will (2011-09-13). The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama. HarperCollins. pp. 73–. ISBN 9780061991721. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
27. Payton, Laura (2006-06-08). "Bilderberg-bound filmmaker held at airport". The Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved 2007-08-13.
28. Grace, Melissa; Xana O'Neill (2007-09-09). "Filmmaker arrested during city protest". Daily News (New York). Archived from the original on 13 October 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-10. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
29. List of Alex Jones Radio Show Affiliated Stations.
30. "Infowars Viewer Count". January 18, 2013. Event occurs at 4:08. Retrieved February 13, 2014.
31. ^ ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK (March 2, 2011). "Meet Alex Jones". Rolling Stone. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
32. "Meet Alex Jones | Politics News | Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
33. Alex Jones on Climategate, RT, 24 November, 2009.
34. "BART Officer Threats". cbs5.com. Retrieved 2010-12-13.
35. An article in the San Jose Mercury News describes Alex Jones as a "conservative radio talk show host".
36. Two articles in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from March and April 2009 describe Jones as a "conservative radio commentator"
37. Norman, Tony (2009-08-14). "A nutty way of discussing health care". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
38. Gosa, Travis L. (2011). "Counterknowledge, racial paranoia, and the cultic milieu: Decoding hip hop conspiracy theory". Poetics. 39 (3): 187. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2011.03.003. Retrieved 2011-07-11.
39. Black, Louis (2000-07-14). "Unknown Title". Austin Chronicle. Retrieved 2008-05-20. Jones is an articulate, sometimes hypnotic, often just annoying conspiracy theorist.
40. Duggan, Paul (2001-10-26). "Austin Hears the Music And Another New Reality; In Texas Cultural Center, People Prepare to Fight Terror" (Fee required). Washington Post. p. A22. Retrieved 2008-05-20. has made the exuberant, 27-year-old conspiracy theorist a minor celebrity in Austin.
41. "Conspiracy Files: 9/11 - Q&A: What really happened" (FAQ). BBC News. 2007-02-16. Retrieved 2008-05-19. Leading conspiracy theorist and broadcaster Alex Jones of infowars.com argues that ...
42. ABC News
43. Roddy, Dennis B. (April 10, 2009). "An Accused Cop Killer's Politics". Slate. Retrieved July 23, 2009.
44. Rosell, Rich (27 November 2006). "Dark days, the Alex Jones interview". digitallyobsessed.com. Archived from the original on unspecified. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |archivedate= (help)
45. "The Alex Jones Show". Austin, TX: KLBJ. July 21, 2008. Archived from the original on September 26, 2010.
46. Hammack, Laurence (June 6, 2009). "Roanoke man charged with making online threats". The Roanoke Times. Archived from the original on June 9, 2009.
47. ^ "Piers Morgan vs. Alex Jones feud: helping or hurting gun control? (+video)". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
48. Mirkinson, Jack (January 9, 2013). "Piers Morgan: Alex Jones 'Terrifying', A Perfect 'Advertisement For Gun Control'". The Huffington Post. Retrieved January 9, 2013.
49. "Social media abuzz over Piers Morgan vs. Alex Jones". CNN. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
50. ^ Dixon, Hayley (June 9, 2013). "'Idiot' Bilderberg conspiracy theorist Alex Jones disrupts BBC politics show". telegraph.co.uk. London. Retrieved June 9, 2013.
51. ^ Topping, Alexandra (June 9, 2013). "Andrew Neil calls Alex Jones an idiot in Sunday Politics clash". guardian.co.uk. London. Retrieved June 9, 2013.
52. Taylor, Adam (9 June 2013). "Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones Goes Berserk During BBC Show". Business Insider. Retrieved 9 June 2013.

External links

• Alex Jones at IMDb
• Alex Jones on YouTube

v t e 9/11 conspiracy theories
Key topics	Advance-knowledge conspiracy theories Opinion polls 9/11 truth movement World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories
Groups	Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Million Muslim March
Film and TV	911: In Plane Site A Few Days in September Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura Loose Change "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" Zeitgeist
Books	9/11: The Big Lie American Conspiracies Among the Truthers Debunking 9/11 Myths The CIA and September 11 The New Pearl Harbor The Terror Timeline
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