Author Interviews

< Former Alex Jones employee says: 'It was nonsense, it was lies'

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. Our guest today has a story to tell about what it's like to work in a disinformation factory. It's the one created by this man.

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ALEX JONES: There are dozens of videos and photos of Obama having flies land on him indoors at all times of year, and he'll be next to a hundred people and no one has flies on them.

Hillary, reportedly, I mean, I was told people around her - that they think she's demon-possessed, OK? I'm just going to go ahead and say it, OK?

DAVIES: You might recognize that as the voice of Alex Jones, the force behind "Infowars," the website, radio program, video streaming show and podcast known for propagating countless conspiracy theories, among them the notion that the deadly school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary was a hoax staged by the government to justify seizing the guns of American citizens. Josh Owen spent four years in his 20s as a video editor and field producer for Jones and his media company. His new memoir takes readers inside the frenetic "Infowars" paranoia shop, where Jones constantly demanded that his staff churn out stories of the evil perpetrated by the deep state and global elites - stories based on few, if any, actual facts. Owens was troubled by the work, but stayed longer than he wishes he had because the pay was good, the work was engaging, and while he found Jones a troubled and sometimes terrifying man, Owens still sought his approval.

After leaving "Infowars," Owens spoke out against conspiratorial thinking in writing, and appearing in the HBO documentary "The Truth Vs. Alex Jones" and by providing a deposition in the successful defamation case the parents of Sandy Hook children brought against Jones. Josh Owens' book is "The Madness Of Believing: A Memoir From Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine."

Well, Josh Owens, welcome to FRESH AIR.

JOSH OWENS: Thanks so much for having me.

DAVIES: Jones was based in Austin, Texas, and I thought to get a sense of what life was like working for "Infowars," we would just go with you on one of these reporting trips that you took. This was one you took with two or three other "Infowars" staff members to drive up the Pacific Coast in California and stop at multiple beaches and measure radiation levels with a Geiger counter you were carrying. Now, what prompted this trip?

OWENS: Well, to get a sense of the chaotic nature of that world, the trip came together in a day. We were basically told to pack our bags and leave, with no idea when we would return. It's pretty simple. Jones saw video online, he made some assumptions about what that video meant and then he sent us out there with a preconceived idea for us to report on. So at Half Moon Bay beach - Surfers Beach, actually, in Half Moon Bay - a man shot a video showing high radiation levels. So Jones tied this all together in his mind. He believed that post the Fukushima disaster that...

DAVIES: That's the nuclear disaster in Japan, right? Yeah.

OWENS: Correct - at the Daiichi nuclear power plant. Jones believed that radiation was floating over onto the West Coast, so he had this idea that the West Coast was riddled with radiation and it was a nightmare scenario. And he wanted us to go there, drive along the Pacific Coast trail and take readings with a Geiger counter that you said we barely knew how to use.

DAVIES: Right. So you went to these beaches, and the Surfers Beach that you went to did have higher than normal radiation readings, but everywhere else you went - well, what did you find? You can explain.

OWENS: Yeah. Well, we didn't find what we were looking for. We did not find high radiation readings. And at the time - this was in the early stage of my employment there - I, along with the people who I was there with, just believed that's what we should report - what we were finding. And so that's what we did. And Jones got incredibly angry.

And the interesting thing about it is that Jones wasn't necessarily explicitly telling us to lie. I think if he was doing that, he wouldn't have as many people working for him because there was this pretend idea that we were searching for the truth. He more so undermined us, made us question our own findings, made us question our own abilities, our own competence. And I'd get sweaty a little bit even thinking back to it. We didn't know what to do. What are we supposed to do? We can't conjure radiation out of thin air, but there was a part of us that wished we could.

DAVIES: Well, you know, the website every day had many, many stories, you know, and the idea was you had to generate outrage constantly with these stories. And a lot of the stories were picked up from other news sources - mainstream and more fringe ones. What was the policy for actually attributing the information that "Infowars" got? I mean, did they say where it came from?

OWENS: Well, it depended. On my first day, I sat down with an editor - I believe it was a producer for the "Nightly News" at the time, which was this newfangled thing Jones was trying out. It didn't last too long. But we were to - if it was a mainstream outlet that reinforced Jones' beliefs, we were supposed to include that. But if it was anything else - if it was a smaller outlet, maybe something that people weren't necessarily aware of - we were not supposed to include that, which was surprising to me when I was told that. As an editor, it was almost a form of training, like, here's what he wants. This is what we should do. I hadn't ever noticed that before in the videos that I had watched online. I didn't realize that sources were often omitted.

But, you know, truthfully, the content of an - any article really made no difference. I don't even think Jones read any of the articles that he would use on his show as evidence to back up his claims. It was only the headline. If the headline could be spun to suit his narrative, that's what he did, and that's what we were instructed to use when we were editing videos.

DAVIES: There's one other story I thought I'd ask you to share which kind of tells us how "Infowars" worked, and that was the day a low-flying plane passed over Austin, where "Infowars" was headquartered. This set Jones into an intense search for a new story. Well, tell us the story.

OWENS: It was just a normal day. I don't remember what was going on beforehand. I'm sure I was editing some report at my computer. And then all of a sudden, the windows started to rattle in the office, and a writer ran through and said that there were helicopters flying by. So, you know, in the conspiracy world, you think helicopters, you think black helicopters, you think, you know, Fox Mulder, "X Files." (Laughter) So a news producer, he ran to my desk, told me to grab a camera and go outside to film this. So I ran outside, and I noticed that he had already gotten on the roof of the building and he was running at top speed, holding this telephoto lens out. I didn't see any helicopters. I didn't see anything in the sky, so I came back in, and he said that he'd gotten it, but it turned out it was a plane.

Jones was out of the office that day, and he called in at that time. He called the news producer. The news producer put him on speakerphone and he was in this manic fervor, saying that he saw a plane, he believed it almost hit a building downtown, this was them trying to make people remember - you know, it was a psychological operation to make them think that 9/11 was happening all over again. You know, he was being very vivid in his language. He claimed it was an E-4B, which he called a Doomsday plane. He was giving these incredible details - he saw the metal rivulets glinting in the sun.

And so anyways, he formed this strategy of how we're going to get this out. This is going to be a huge news. He said by the end of the day, it was going to be the biggest news in the country. And so, you know, he started grasping at all of these ideas and putting them into this report he wanted cut together. And he gave us a headline. He told us what to put out. He told the person who was covering the show for him that day sort of how to spin this narrative and how to make it a big story. And by the next morning, it was as if it had never happened. A local news station had reported that it was just a simple military exercise, a touch-and-go operation. And I didn't understand what was going on. As a viewer, you see these things, and you think, wow, this is a huge story. And then maybe you don't tune in the next day. Maybe you don't realize that it ends up fizzling and being nothing. But while you're in that world, it's pretty stark to realize how something is portrayed as this incredible thing, and then it just becomes nothing, fairy dust.

DAVIES: Right. And just to be clear, nobody at Infowars made calls to the military or aviation authorities to ask, well, what was going on?

OWENS: Let me be clear about that in every sense. No inquiries were ever made in anything. Jones had an idea, and that's what stuck.

DAVIES: We need to take a break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Josh Owens. His book is "The Madness Of Believing: A Memoir From Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine." We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE MOUNTAIN GOATS SONG, "SOUTHWOOD PLANTATION ROAD")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're speaking with Josh Owens. He spent four years in his 20s working for Alex Jones and his media company, "Infowars." His new book is "The Madness Of Believing: A Memoir From Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine."

So tell us a little about your background.

OWENS: I grew up in north Georgia. When I got sucked into Jones' world, I was relatively young. Throughout high school, I played music. I thought for sure that's what I was going to do with the rest of my life. After high school, that, as things go, just sort of fell apart. And I was left directionless. I didn't really know what I was going to do. I was a little punk in school - I didn't think it mattered. I had no intention of going to college.

So I was kind of terrified. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know who I wanted to be, I didn't know where I was going. And then at the most opportune, or least opportune, depending on at what point I'm looking at it - now it's least opportune timing - I was introduced to Jones' website, Infowars, and Jones as a personality. Initially, it wasn't ideological. I didn't know much about politics. I didn't know anything about politics. It was movies that introduced me to Jones.

I was watching "Dr. Strangelove" with a friend. There's a scene where Sterling Hayden starts talking about - he goes on this manic tirade about water fluoridation. My friend paused the movie, and he asked me if I'd ever heard of Alex Jones. I had never heard that name. So he ran to the bathroom, grabbed a tube of toothpaste. And he showed me the warning label, where it said, if you swallow more than a pea-sized amount, call poison control. And he asked me, he said, you know, if you swallow a pea-sized amount and you have to call poison control, how is it that they put it in our water supply, and we don't know how much we're drinking?

Well, I didn't even know what he was talking about. So I didn't have an answer, but according to him, this guy Alex Jones did. So that night, I looked up Jones' Infowars. And initially, I found a documentary that he had released called "Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove," where he and journalist Jon Ronson had snuck into the Bohemian Club, which was this group of - it was an all-male meeting of these powerful men in the California redwoods. And it was just horrifying. It was like a mix between "The Blair Witch Project" and "Eyes Wide Shut," so I was just sort of hooked from there.

DAVIES: Your girlfriend, Lacey, went to Savannah to study at the Savannah College of Art and Design. So you went, too. You got into film school. And then at some point, I guess you entered a contest, a kind of an audition to get a job for "Infowars." Tell us about that.

OWENS: Right, yeah. So Jones put on - he was looking to grow his operation and hire more reporters. And I saw the opportunity, and I thought, you know, why not? Why not give it a shot? So I went to the Jekyll Island Club, which was supposedly the birthplace of the concept of the Federal Reserve. I shot a report. I submitted the report. And what Infowars said were thousands of submissions, I got in the top 10, the final round. And Jones - I later learned Jones didn't believe I quite had what it took to be a reporter, thank God. So he hired me as a video editor and camera operator initially.

DAVIES: Right. So you plunged into this kind of frenetic world there. I want to play a clip here from "Infowars." This is Jones. Just a little - it'll introduce something I want to talk about.

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JONES: I love America. It's not fear that makes me get tears in my eye, it's will and strength boiling to defeat these tyrants and these globalists. But that said, just like our information is game changing, the products that we sell, all of them are powerful. And whether it's colloidal silver from 1995, the very best out there, or whether it's DNA Force, it's now back in stock.

DAVIES: Boy, that's Alex Jones. No questioning his commitment to his gig here. So he was selling supplements. He sold other stuff, too, right? Survival gear, body armor, all kinds of things. But he learned, actually, the trick of selling supplements, dietary supplements, from Joe Rogan? Is this right?

OWENS: That was his intro into that world. You know, Jones' connection with Rogan goes back pretty far, actually. The guy Kevin Booth, who was connected to the comedian Bill Hicks, he produced some of Jones' early documentaries and also produced Joe Rogan's very first comedy special. So there's a weird - I think that's how they got connected. But Jones saw that it was a profitable, successful endeavor for Rogan and saw it as an option for himself.

DAVIES: So when Jones spent time on the air, you know, promoting dietary supplements and all this other stuff that he was selling, how important was that to the enterprise?

OWENS: Well, when I first started working there, especially when I first started listening to Jones, it was 2008 when I first heard of him. You know, he would sell T-shirts. He would sell DVDs. But he would also encourage his audience to copy the DVDs and give them out for free. I, in my naive state, saw that as like, well, OK. I mean, it's not about money. It's got to be about the ideas. I think that just Jones saw that as free advertising, ultimately. But I started working there as soon as he started the supplements. And it wasn't gradual. It was almost immediate. He was badgering reporters. They needed to start talking about supplements in their reports. They needed to cut to ads regularly. When I first was trained on how to edit videos - I say trained. I mean, I was told not to include certain websites. That was pretty much the training.

It was basically just do what Jones wants in the moment. A lot of times, he would stand over your shoulder and tell you what he wanted. But ads were not put at the end of every video that was uploaded, and that quickly changed. Jones wanted ads on every video. If people were on the radio, they had to. If people were filling in, hosting the show, they had to near-constantly talk about the products that he was selling. Jones had this idea that he wanted to grow his operation into this full-fledged media outlet. And his narrative was the only way he could do that is if he was bringing in so much money that he had the resources to do it.

DAVIES: And it certainly seemed like, you know, there was plenty of money, right?

OWENS: Yeah. Jones' lifestyle changed pretty drastically. For some of the employees, he paid them incredibly well. I wouldn't say that applied to everyone there. But for a select few that were willing to do what Jones wanted, he rewarded people with money. He wasn't a stingy guy in that sense.

DAVIES: He also spent time with you and other staff members doing other stuff, like shooting guns. He would go out to a private ranch. And describe those experiences or one of them.

OWENS: I'm not really a gun guy. Despite growing up in the South, I wasn't really ever around that sort of stuff. But Jones liked to go out to this private ranch and shoot these videos where he would blow stuff up. And they got a lot of views. They were content that he could use on his website to talk about the Second Amendment and whatever ideas he had about guns and his love for guns. So one particular time we went out, Jones was drinking pretty heavily. And he filled a television with Tannerite.

And we were loading magazines, and we were about to shoot at it. And all of a sudden, I heard a loud noise like a gun firing off. And I saw, not far from me, the dirt sort of powder up into the air. And we ducked instinctively, and we looked around, and Jones had an - I believe it was an AR-15. And it was aiming in our direction. And he had accidentally shot the gun. And you'd think in a situation like that, is that the most interesting part of the story? And actually, it's not. The most interesting part of the story was how everyone reacted afterwards.

We were there with one reporter, a woman reporter, and she got incredibly upset. She also wasn't comfortable around guns. Jones just brought her out because he wanted her to be on camera. And she got really upset and started asking, you know, what is going on? Why? This doesn't seem safe. What are you doing? And then everyone, including myself, we all just sort of played into Jones' line. He said it was a joke. He said that he did it intentionally. He was just messing around.

The look on his face, I could tell it wasn't intentional. I mean, why would anyone do that intentionally? That's incredibly dangerous, especially for a boss to be doing that to their employees. But we all just sort of ran to his defense. And, you know, get Jones' back. Don't make him feel uncomfortable. Don't make him feel like he's wrong for doing this. And that was just the immediate reaction. And look, I was part of it. It was, you know, why are you asking questions? Why are you going crazy? This isn't that big of a deal. It was a huge deal. He could've killed us.

DAVIES: Right, right, right. How did you feel walking into the office in the morning to start a new day?

OWENS: It's funny. Early on, I would listen to music on the way to work. I would try and get myself in a good mood. I believe early on, I was well-meaning. I thought what we were doing was important. I felt like it was a big opportunity to be there. I had been plucked out of film school where I didn't know what my future was. And it was just exciting. And I remember there were many times in the beginning I would go into the office with a good attitude. And then, like, a snap of the finger - Jones would come into the office. Sometimes he was jovial, sometimes he was playing around. But that playfulness could turn on a dime.

And we were always on edge, waiting for that to turn. And I just remember my attitude shifting at some point where I thought, OK, I'm not here. This has got nothing to do with me. It's not about being excited. It's not about, you know, having ideas or contributing in that way. It's what does Jones need at all times? If he's going to play around, I'll sit here, I'll listen, I'll laugh. But don't get too involved because you might be the one that turns the dime.

DAVIES: God, it kind of sounds like being in a cult (laughter).

OWENS: Yeah. I am hesitant often to say that because I know there are people in those situations that deal with a lot of horrific things. But yes, I think that in many ways, it was. And it was that fear, constant fear of, you know, you kind of can't leave either because you've attached yourself to Jones. He's kind of a black mark on your resume. He would say this to us on a regular basis. You cannot exist in the world outside of here because you are connected to me. And in that sense, yeah, I mean, I don't know another way to describe it but cult-like.

DAVIES: We are speaking with Josh Owens. His book is, "The Madness of Believing: A Memoir From Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine." He'll be back to talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BEASTIE BOYS SONG, "NAMASTE")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. We are listening to the interview I recorded with Josh Owens, who spent four years in his 20s working as a video editor and field producer for the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his media enterprise "Infowars." In a new memoir, Owens describes the stress and moral qualms he felt as Jones pressured his staff to generate countless stories about the evil done by globalist elites, the deep state and the mainstream media. Owens' book is "The Madness Of Believing: A Memoir From Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine."

One or two more of the reporting trips that you went on are, I think, worth talking about. Once, you were dispatched with some other reporters to El Paso, Texas, because the conservative website Judicial Watch had alleged that ISIS had established a training base in a neighborhood in Juarez, just across the border there from El Paso. What did you find when you went there?

OWENS: Nothing (laughter). We found nothing.

DAVIES: Well, that's not what they - that's not what the website said, right (laughter)?

OWENS: Right, that's not what the website said. So we went to this place because of the Judicial Watch report. We went to El Paso. And when we got there - I was there with a reporter. When we got there, there was nothing to report on. And so we started getting calls from a news producer saying, Jones is expecting something. What are you doing? What are you guys doing? And I remember being so perplexed and angry - like, what do you expect us to do? We can't just summon something out of thin air - that I said, well, I mean, I guess we'll just make the reporter I'm with - I guess we'll just dress him up as an ISIS jihadi and have him walk across the border to show that they could get in. And it was just a moment of anger, a moment of feeling perplexed. And the producer said, let me call you right back. And so he called us back and he said, yeah, Jones loves the idea. That's what you guys need to do.

DAVIES: Oh, my goodness.

OWENS: And I remember sitting there thinking, what idea? What are you talking about? He was like, your idea. You guys are going to get the reporter to dress up as ISIS and you're going to film him walking across the border. And it was another one of those moments where, like, your head goes fuzzy and you think, well, what? That's not -what? But then a day later or two days later, we got a box in the mail at our hotel and it had the whole getup. The news producer had even stenciled an ISIS flag. He sent a sword. He sent a - he went to a prop shop in Austin and sent a severed head. And he wanted us to be in Mexico, simulate severing a head, the reporter dressed as ISIS, and walk across.

And, I mean, even repeating this is the most ridiculous thing. But in Jones' world, that's what was asked, and, you know, every day was ridiculous, and that ridiculous became normalcy.

DAVIES: Right.

OWENS: So...

DAVIES: The idea would be to show that the border was so porous that an ISIS member with a flag and a severed head wouldn't even be stopped entering the country.

OWENS: Yes, that was the concept. But it turned out that the border wasn't as porous as we were claiming it to be. Every time we went anywhere near the line, there were Border Patrol agents everywhere. And so finally, because in the chaos of the situation, letting Jones down, being made a fool, we just happened to find a little stream that looked like it could be the Rio Grande, and we filmed the video in the middle of nowhere. It was not on the border. And we posted that video, and we lied. We said we were on the border. The reporter I was with simulated the beheading, walked across and that's what we posted.

DAVIES: What kind of traffic did that video get? Do you know?

OWENS: Yeah. I mean, I - overnight it had over a million views. Jones went on the show and he said, you know, this - we have to share this with friends, share this with family. This is proof. This is evidence that the border is open and that there is danger afoot. So, yeah, the video went viral.

DAVIES: After that trip, you write in the book, we had become seasoned BS artists, devoid of conscience. At this point, you didn't feel good about what you were doing, did you?

OWENS: No, no, not at all. But again, like I said, it was - there were so many things that I distracted myself with. There were so many excuses I made to continue doing it. I felt like there was no way out. I felt like - you know, a lot of the times I don't even think I was thinking at all. The main thing was how do I do a good job? How do I get the approval of this person? How do I just mitigate those blow-ups?

DAVIES: After the trip to El Paso, you also discovered a - what might have been a mosque in Juarez, surrounded by barbed wire, and this was presented as if it's certainly an ISIS outpost, which you had no evidence of. But then you went on a separate - another trip to an Islamic community, I guess, in upper New York state, right? Is it Islamberg? Do I have that right?

OWENS: Yes, you do.

DAVIES: Where you and some reporters went. And it's a community that practiced their faith and kind of kept to themselves. When you went up to the entrance, you were told, well, give us your names and we'll - we're going to check out and make sure you're who you say you are. And after that, you were actually visited by people from the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, who the Islamberg officials had asked to just check you out to make sure that you're not a threat, right? Am I getting this right?

OWENS: Right.

DAVIES: So you end up kind of doing these stories. The headlines were, sharia law zones confirmed in America. And then the visits from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which was - just established that you weren't a threat, were treated as being spied upon by the deep state. The headline was, "Infowars" reporters stalked by Terrorism Task Force. Not exactly what happened, was it (laughter)?

OWENS: No. Jones told us before we went there - you know, he had this idea that he wanted us to do this tour around the country, to go to these - what he called the American caliphate, to spread this fear about Islam in America. So we were sent to Islamberg. This time, we actually gathered information that went directly against what we had presupposed. We spoke to the mayor of Deposit, which was the closest town. We spoke to the sheriff. So we spoke to the officials in the area who had direct connection with those people, and they all said they were friendly, they were great community members, their kids went to school together, they invited them over for holiday parties. There wasn't a single thing that they were suspicious of or that they felt that those people had done wrong or anything. And we did not report that.

We did not - we took a little clip out of context of the sheriff where he was saying, yeah, they shoot guns up there, they have, like, a summer program for kids, which, in any other circumstance, Jones and the majority of the people that listened to him would be all for. But because they were Muslims, it was just the most horrifying, terrifying thing that they could possibly imagine.

And we reaffirmed those beliefs. We continued that narrative. We didn't talk about the things that we found. We just - I mean, there was no point in even going there. We were just saying the stuff that Jones was saying on his show before we ever went. But in Jones' world, it was all about making things look cinematic. And so we would go out there. We would shoot videos, and, you know, almost like a - almost like VICE News. Like, we were in the weeds. We were showing what was really going on. Join us for the content where you get to see what's actually happening. But it was all nonsense. It was all lies.

DAVIES: Well, I'm a lot older than you, and I can - I know I'm - wouldn't want to be judged by the dumbest things I'd done in my 20s. I mean, I think when you're that age, you're trying to, you know, please people that are decades older than you, and that's what they tell you what to do. And it - you tend to respect authority and try and do a good job, I guess.

OWENS: Yeah, I think that's a big part of the reason why - I know it's a big part of the reason why I wrote this book. I look back on those things, and I think I don't want to be a person that just moves on from it and doesn't take accountability because then I don't feel like you can grow. And I would love to grow. I would love to continue growing. I would love to be a better person. And so I just felt like I needed to clear things up for myself. Why was I there? Why did I do these things? Why did I stick around for so long? I don't have all the answers now, but I think exploring it and asking those questions and taking accountability was just sort of part of the process.

DAVIES: I want to take another break here. Let me reintroduce you.

We are speaking with Josh Owens. His book is "The Madness Of Believing: A Memoir From Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine." We'll talk more after this break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SKY MUSIC'S SONG, "TOUGH ENOUGH/ROLLING STONE/TOUGH ENOUGH")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and our guest is Josh Owens, who spent four years in his 20s working as a video editor and field producer for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his media enterprise "Infowars." His memoir is, "The Madness Of Believing: A Memoir From Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine."

You know, one thing you don't write much about in the book - which would loom large in the broader Alex Jones story - was the horrific shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. That happened just a few months before you joined Jones. How aware were you of his and other "Infowar" hosts comments about Sandy Hook during the time you were there?

OWENS: It happened in that exact liminal space between me being offered the job and me starting the job. And I think, you know, if I'm being honest, so much of my mind was just focused on moving to a new place, and I wasn't paying attention to those things. The reason I don't write much about that in the book is because I didn't really have much connection with that. I never worked on reports about Sandy Hook. I really didn't even notice the gravity of it until it started, you know - Hillary Clinton called Jones out in the 2016 election, and she said, you know, how dark does someone heart - someone's heart have to be to tell the stories that Jones did to spread those narratives?

You would think most people would hear that, and they would be horrified by it, but Jones was literally prancing around the office, calling himself Dark Heart. But it wasn't until there was, you know - there were people covering that story, talking to the family members. They were recounting their experiences - that I realized the gravity of that situation. And the - you know, looking back at it, I think, how many instances are we not seeing where that occurred? Because if Jones said everything was a false flag, if Jones made his listeners question these things, how many Sandy Hooks are there that maybe won't go to court, that maybe won't get the attention? How many lives have been affected by his rhetoric?

DAVIES: How long did you think about leaving before you actually took the step?

OWENS: Truthfully, I dipped in and out of thinking about leaving from pretty early on. The turning point, I guess - or at least the beginning of the turning point - is that when we went on that Islamburg trip, we were telling lies and making stories up and basically just trying to do a good job for our boss. The social implications be damned. And on the flight back, there was a woman with - a Muslim woman, with a young girl, and the girl was sitting in my row, and she asked if I could move away from the window seat and give her the window seat. And so I said, yes. And I remember sitting there watching her, and it sounds so, like, cheesy, but it was just this moment of, like, she's - she could be living in that community.

These people didn't do anything. They - there's no reason for suspicion. It's just racism. And it doesn't matter if we'd shoot a good report. It doesn't matter if Jones is happy. Why did they care? If I was in that situation, I could care less if someone was getting a bonus or, you know, fulfilling their, you know - having a good career. Who cares about that when real people are being affected? And it was just a shift. It was a small shift. It's not like I - it's not like after that, I changed everything and all of a sudden became a good person or started to do the right thing. But it did start to make me look at things a little bit differently.

DAVIES: How did Alex Jones respond when you actually gave notice?

OWENS: I thought I'd lucked out, and I didn't give notice to him directly - but he called me shortly after. And he offered me the world. You know, first, he tried to understand in his own way, you know, I don't like what I'm doing either, is what he said. You know, I don't want to do this either. I don't want to do this anymore. And he said, you don't want to come into the office? Work remotely. We'll send you reports to do. You don't ever even have to come in. I know it's a crazy atmosphere. You don't even have to worry about it. You want me to, you know, fund a feature-length film for you? I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll double your pay. And I, you know, was so sick of everything by that point. Money was the least of my concerns. So I said, no, and then he got angry and started - he went on this diatribe about negativity. And, you know, if you focus on the negativity, you let it rot in your brain, and it's like shooting negative bullets into a negative wall. I had no idea what he was talking about. But I think he was just trying to get me to stay. He made it seem like he cared about me, but I think ultimately, it was just about him losing control. He didn't want to lose control of someone that had been so close to him for that long and someone he depended on and relied upon.

DAVIES: You did depositions for the Sandy Hook defamation trial to assist the parents in their case. You went on camera in the HBO documentary, "The Truth Vs Alex Jones," and you wrote a story for The New York Times Magazine, kind of with some of the stories that you've told us today, just describing your experience. It's interesting that when the magazine's fact checkers reached out and contacted Alex Jones, then he knew what you were up to. He wrote you a note. What did he say?

OWENS: Yeah. So initially, what I had - when he found out that I was not under his control anymore, I guess, was when Ronson had released the episode of our meeting - our secret meeting at the inauguration, where I told him a story for This American Life. And that outreach was, hey, Josh, hope you're doing well. And he sent me this voice memo that was like, very - you know, it was - his manipulative propensity was on full display. It was, you know, if you need to do this to make yourself feel better, I understand. I know it would have been - you know, I understand it was hard living in Austin around these people.

And so if it makes people like you better, it makes you feel better, I guess that's OK. He was like, I know you're a smart guy. I care about you, but, you know, I'm just not going to be your villain. But then when The New York Times piece came out, he sent me two messages. The first message was, I'm going public - which I didn't know what he was talking about. And the next message was, I hope you have good legal representation. And that's the last I ever heard of him, from...

DAVIES: And how long ago was that?

OWENS: That was in 2019.

DAVIES: And - OK, so quiet since then. You know, I should note that you mentioned Jon Ronson wrote a - did a piece for This American Life. I commend that to listeners. It's an amazing story about Alex Jones and his origin story. Him, in high school and how he ended up in Austin. And I won't try and summarize it, but it is a fascinating story. We need to take a break here. Let me reintroduce you.

We are speaking with Josh Owens. His book is "The Madness Of Believing: A Memoir From Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine." We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.

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DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're speaking with Josh Owens. He spent four years in his 20s working for Alex Jones and his media company, "Infowars." His new book is, "The Madness Of Believing: A Memoir From Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine."

You know, I want to talk about Alex Jones today. You know, he - you know, the parents of the Sandy Hook kids sued, bringing a defamation claim against Jones and his businesses. And there were trials in Texas and Connecticut, and it ended up with judges finding Jones liable for defamation and imposing financial judgments of $1.5 billion against him. Now, that was in 2022 - nearly four years ago - but he's still around. In fact, I went on the internet just recently. I found this.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Big Brother, mainstream media, government cover-ups. You want to stop tyranny? Well, so does he. Live from the Infowars.com studios, it's Alex Jones.

DAVIES: So he still has the - you know, the show. He has a podcast. He has a video streaming program on YouTube. He's still selling his supplements and other merchandise. Could you explain, like, how it is after these enormous judgments and losing this case in court, he's still doing what he does?

OWENS: Can I explain it? No, it's absurd to me that he's still doing it. You know, Jones says that he's going to be shut down soon, and he said that so many times. I just don't trust anything he has to say. When Jones was originally deplatformed - he was taken off of all social media - I think a lot of people wiped their hands of him. They said, oh, great, he's gone. Then the Sandy Hook trials happened, this unprecedented judgment, and they said, OK, great. He's gone. And he's not gone. And I can say here with confidence, as long as he's alive, he will never be gone.

DAVIES: You know, I contacted one of the attorneys for the Connecticut families, Chris Mattei...

OWENS: Yeah.

DAVIES: ...Because I was interested in how is he still on the air, and what he explained was that Jones and his companies declared bankruptcy, and the bankruptcy court was supposed to work out how they were going to seize his assets and liquidate and distribute them. But then the bankruptcy court somehow couldn't do it - in part because Jones wasn't cooperative. And so the - they kind of washed their hands of it. And so Texas state courts are now involved. They've appointed a receiver that is in the process of identifying the assets and apparently has decided that for the moment, "Infowars" is generating income, which could be a benefit to the families.

But I think the intent is that at some point, he would be stripped of his ability to do what he does. I don't know if that's going to happen or not, but that's why he's still broadcasting four years after the settlements.

OWENS: Right. Yeah, I mean, look, I'll - I'm - I don't know the legalities of everything, but I feel confident in saying that he might be stripped of "Infowars." He might be stripped of that name. He might be stripped of his current office, but he isn't going to be stripped of his voice.

DAVIES: Yeah. It's been more than a decade since you went to work for Alex Jones, but today, you know, there's this big trend of young people, particularly young men, embracing hateful conspiracy theories. I wonder if you have any insight from your own experience why that might be.

OWENS: Well, from my experience, it came at an opportune time. It made the world feel more exciting. For me, it was movies. Jones had this cinematic world view. He described the world in terms of, you know, Sidney Lumet's "Network" and John Carpenter's "They Live" and every Stanley Kubrick movie. And I was just a guy who - that's how I communicated. That's how I saw the world. That's how my - me and my friends talked growing up. I was in film school, I was learning about it, and it was just, you know, boom, it got me.

There are a hundred other ways that Jones is getting people. He's much more overt now in his racism and his sexism, having people on like Nick Fuentes. So in some sense, you know, there's the - I don't know much about it, but the loneliness epidemic with men. There's entitlement, there's privilege. And Jones sort of creates this world where, like, hey, you don't have to apologize for who you are. You don't have to apologize for what you do. You don't have to learn. You don't have to grow. Listen to me. You know, we're going to take over the world. That seems to be his narrative now. It's all this white identity stuff, which, before, if I ever heard him talk about that stuff, I never would have gotten sucked into his world, but now it just seems to be this turning tide of anger and rage.

DAVIES: You're in your mid-30s now, right?

OWENS: Mid to late.

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DAVIES: OK. Thirty-six? What is that? I tried to do the math once.

OWENS: Thirty-seven.

DAVIES: OK. What - you got a lot of years ahead of you. Where do you see your life going?

OWENS: Well, first off, I hope I'm lucky (laughter) enough to have a lot of years ahead of me. Right now, my life is good. I'm surrounded by friends and family. And, you know, I spent years working on this stuff. And I remember an interview with David Sedaris where he said one of the reasons that he wrote was that he wanted the world to love his mother as much as he did, and in the most difficult times in writing this book, I kind of thought the same thing. I thought, I want the world to love my partner as much as I do because she was so - I mean, how lucky am I to have been someone who was surrounded by, or, you know, was with a person who cared about them and would ask questions and not push and - even when she had every right to? That's - this is not prescriptive. I'm not saying, you know, people who are with someone that buys into conspiracy theories, you know, stick around. But I'm just incredibly grateful that she did.

But I am in the place I am now because of people - because of people like Lacey, because of people like Jon Ronson. And I'm happy. I like writing. I'm working on another book now that has nothing to do with Alex Jones. So, yeah, fingers crossed there are many years left and they are nothing like the previous ones.

DAVIES: I wish you good luck. Thanks for speaking with us.

OWENS: Well, thank you so much for having me on. It's a real honor.

DAVIES: Josh Owens' book is "The Madness of Believing: A Memoir From Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine."

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram - @nprfreshair.

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DAVIES: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.

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