Friday Frivolity: The Onion Buy InfoWars

There’s not much to say beyond the headline. I was just thrilled to write a headline that you might expect to find in The Onion, except that it is a real headline about The Onion. Benjamin Mullin and Elizabeth Williamson, two actual journalists, bring you the story in The New York Times, here.

Some background: Families of the victims of the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School won a $1.4 billion defamation suit against Mr. Jones and his company. His company is called Free Speech Systems, but it turns out, First Amendment protections do not apply to baseless claims that the mass shooting at Sandy Hook was fabricated as a “pretext for confiscating Americans’ firearms.” The judgment bankrupted Mr. Jones and his companies. The Onion purchased Infowars in resulting sale required to satisfy Mr. Jones’ debts. The families of the victims reportedly support the transaction.

There may be an actual contract issue here, but perhaps it will end up being more frivolity. There is a frustrated bidder, which the Times identifies as “First United American Companies, a business associated with an online supplement store that bears Mr. Jones’s name.” The business alleges irregularities in the bidding process. For its part, The Onion has disclosed that it bought InfoWars for a bargain price, “less than one trillion dollars.”